


Hope of Morning

by magicasen



Series: Hope of Morning [1]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Iron Man (Comic), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers Vol. 5 (2013), Fix-It, M/M, Original Sin (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-21 07:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2460293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicasen/pseuds/magicasen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Incursions. The Illuminati. Rogue planets and mindwipes, Dyson Spheres and Worldkillers. Ask Tony Stark to list all the wrongs he's ever committed, and he wouldn't even know where to begin.</p><p>But when the Watcher dies and the secrets of the entire universe come to light, Tony discovers his greatest sin is one he chose to forget.  </p><p>(AU from Original Sin #2)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, thanks to [Salmastryon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmastryon/pseuds/Salmastryon) for posing the what-if question that inspired this story!
> 
> The title comes from Icon for Hire's "Hope of Morning."
> 
> And thank you to [iloome](http://archiveofourown.org/users/iloome/pseuds/iloome) for the beta!

**Now:**

Tony flexed his gauntlet, and the red circle of the repulsor shone dimly back at him. The sight allowed his nerves to settle, and he leaned back. Wearing the gauntlet at all hours of the day had become instinct, to keep the translocator and incursion clock embedded in the palm of his hand hidden away. A bright light flashing out of Tony Stark's palm wasn't very inconspicuous, but no one would bat an eye if it came from Iron Man's, instead.

What people might have taken notice of was what lay on his worktable before him. Sometime between blackmail by Bruce Banner and a trip to the moon, courtesy of yet another one of Fury's gambits, one box with a label but no postmark had shown up in his lab amongst his tools. That was the way to get it done, Tony supposed. Items did not just come to Tony Stark via traditional postal methods, not without increasingly more stringent levels of vetoes, where no -- Tony eyed the label -- Ron Kastar from 451 Rigel Road would have even been given a second glance before being passed off to some poor sap intern.

Tony studied the syringe again, and wondered if maybe he shouldn't pull out some tools to fiddle with, so that he didn't look like someone out of their mind with either madness or exhaustion. Neither would look good to anyone who would barge in at this time of night, even if they both held some truth. But that was beside the point. "Anyone" would mean Steve, and sorry Cap, but Tony didn't really feel like being admonished to go to sleep whilst he contemplated stabbing and injecting himself with a nano-virus that would literally rewrite his mind. Again.

Tony hesitated as he picked up the syringe with his free hand, rolling it between his fingers. There was little chance he would suffer physically, if Arno already knew how Extremis had reworked his brain the first time and coded it to not touch anything already modified. All his brother had really done was write Tony an update. If only things could always be so breezy.

Right on cue, Tony's body seized and his mind blanked as another memory crashed into him. Countless, bright zeroes exploded in sparks before him, and for the first time, the memory brought a physical component - here, an ebb of pain throbbed in his right palm and his entire body seized up at the sensation. It hurt, but it didn't hurt as much as Tony's sinking heart did.

His eyes shot open, having closed of their own volition during the memory. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath. That had been the strongest memory yet, and that was...dangerous. He had managed to hide it since the incident, most of the others too preoccupied with what the eye had shown them, instead. But none of the attacks had done this before or left him so shaken. Tony's fingers tightened around the syringe.

Doing this would mean taking a step he couldn't undo (not this time, anyway, Tony wouldn't make the same mistake twice). But did it really matter when he had been living his entire life that way in the first place? Moreover, what type of irresponsible asshole kept himself at risk when his brain and memories held the trigger to save the world (or destroy one)? His eyes flitted to the red light emanating from his palm.

Tony pressed the needle to a vein and depressed the stopper in one fluid motion before he could stop himself.

`Setup is initializing. Preparing Extremis installation...`

`Running extr_anthony.exe...`

Tony blinked in surprise, and brought his bare hand to his face. It didn't come into contact with any helmet like he had half expected. All he could do now was stare, in awe of the words that ran along his vision. He looked up, and the words remained unmarred by the change in depth perception or the light that shone down from the ceiling. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, they had resituated themselves at the top and bottom of his view, keeping his line of sight unobstructed. He could feel the computers in his room brimming at the edge of his consciousness, ready and waiting for him to reach out to them.

`Extracting files...`

`Installing files...`

Suddenly, there was no more time to admire the clean beauty of technicalities anymore.

_"We should have talked sooner."_

`Please wait...`

“ _Our father, who art in heaven. Hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”_

The memories that had barraged his mind for the past weeks surfaced again, in crystal-clear clarity, ones replaced by fists and energy blasts, zeros by expressions of hatred, wariness, betrayal. The static roaring in his ears turned into heated shouts, whispers laden with tears and cries full of outrage.

“ _You're a good man, Tony Stark. You risked everything to get us to this place. But I truly believe you've given people heroes we can believe in again.”_

“ _I told him I loved him, and he squeezed my hand.”_

“ _Who'd you kill to get where you are?”_

_" **Rogers is down!** "_

“ _You've got five minutes.”_

“ _Guess that's thirty-one pieces of silver you've got now, huh? Sleep well, Judas.”_

 _America_ _**needs** _ _a Captain, maybe now more than ever. Don't let that dream die. Yours –_

“ _You were my rudder.”_

_"Was it **worth** it?"_

The door to the lab flew off its hinges, but it was a distant observation, one that barely registered when all he could see was the slab before him, body laid atop it pale and deathly still, the star on the shield crushing the shriveled, blackened weight inside him.

`Files installed successfully.`

* * *

**Before:**

"Attention, murderers and Mindless Ones!" The armor's amplifying unit let Tony's voice ring clear over the city, though there were very few ears he was actually interested in reaching. Namely, the ones responsible for the gruesome murder of the Watcher, that guy on the moon who had made it his business to _not_ deal with anyone else's business.

"You are surrounded. By every superhero from all five boroughs of New York City and then some. I suggest you surrender. Quickly. You have until the sound of thunder to comply."

"Or to make peace with your mindless little gods." Of course, Thor didn't need any voice amplifiers.

"That, too."

"Guys," Bruce's voice cut in via comm. "The energy we've been tracking is leaping off the charts here. I'd say there are at least a dozen Mindless Ones inside that penthouse."

"And just one of those things nearly leveled half the city," Fury added. "We need that building evacuated, now."

"This is Rogers on the ground floor," Steve replied on cue, crisp and clear. "We're evacuating as fast as Magik can teleport."

“Nick," Natasha said. "Look at the infrared. It's not just Mindless Ones up there. We've got other targets." Other targets was promising. Considering the precarious mental and emotional states of their Mindless friends, other targets meant they might have found themselves the ringleaders of this whole shebang, who would dispose of someone who could only have been a witness.

Natasha's voice interrupted Tony's thoughts. "And looks to me like a whole bunch of guns." Now, that part wasn't so promising.

Like her remark was a trigger, a crash accompanied Natasha's words. Glass shards and bullets were harmless against Tony, but the armor wasn't so impervious to a beam of pure destructive energy. He didn't even have the time to realize he needed to dodge before a Mindless One blasted him dead center in the RT node. Warning alarms blared in his ears while his mind shorted out from the force, though he could still make out the sound of shouts and explosions over the comm.

At least he had the advantage of flight. Tony blindly twisted away the moment he regained his senses, and the paralyzing pain cut short when gravity worked against the Mindless One falling past him. Then he was treated to the sight of the quinjet engulfed in flames, on course for a head-on collision with the street. There were many impressive capabilities Tony incorporated into the quinjet's design, but winning that battle wasn't one of them.

The resultant crash sent cars and streetlights flying, hunks of debris flung over the road and accompanied by loud clangs. But, most importantly, superheroes charged out of the quinjet wreckage, evacuated safely. That was all Tony needed to see before his throat unclenched and he could launch himself headfirst into the battle.

One trigger-happy Exterminatrix and a handful of Mindless Ones. The formidability of a strike force was relative to one's enemy, of course, but all this showed was that they hadn't been paying attention to his earlier announcement. Just Storm or Thor on their own could have wiped the floor with them and had affogato for dessert.

Tony fired off a repulsor at one of the Mindless Ones, who roared and turned its one eye toward him in outrage when it caught its shoulder. The moment it discharged a beam from its eye in retaliation, Ben Grimm clobbered the side of its face in. Tony dodged the shot handily.

Easy. It was too easy; there was no way Exterminatrix could have thought she stood a chance. She has already been subdued, scant moments into a battle that was already over, the other Mindless Ones as easily incapacitated as Tony's. Natasha stepped forward and clicked on handcuffs around Exterminatrix's wrists.

Exterminatrix's head was down. Her posture, eyes focused on the ground and body bent in a futile effort to appear smaller, spelled out _defeat_. There was something almost pathetic about it, and moreover, that was not the reaction of someone who was fighting for victory. The answer to the unasked question came with the exit of two beings from the stakeout building.

"Oh."

Their culprits were Midas and a person with a cloth thrown over their head, who stopped in their tracks the moment they came face-to-face with the superheroes gathered. The cloth had a single hole cut out in its center. It was an almost comedic sight, until whatever the cloth man has in his hand started to glow.

"Holy hell. They've got the Watcher's eyeball. The sick bastards." Luke sounded as stunned as Tony felt.

"Put the eye down and step away." Steve, ever the forthright one.

"Whatever the hell this is, it's finished," Fury shouted, blowing any plays at diplomacy. "You're murderers, and you're all going down."

"No," Cloth-man said, voice distant. "No, I don't think so. See, we're not the murderers you're looking for. And this," he held up the eye, "this isn't an eye. Not anymore." The hand not holding the eye reached to pull the cloth up, voice getting, if possible, even more deranged the longer he was allowed to speak.

"It's a bomb. A bomb full of secrets. And what do bombs do?" With a flourish, the person underneath was unmasked, and the person underneath was a goddamned _giant eyeball._

"They go boom."

A loud bang, then the explosion blasted Tony back. He was shouting, everyone was shouting, he could hear it over the comms. But it was not the most important thing he heard.

_“The eternal angel of death forgives you."_

_"Why not just jump in volcano? Entire brain vaporized in instant."_

_"When I look in the mirror, I want to scream."_

_"It was always her."_

_"Ooh, 'please', he says. Like the sound of that. How does it feel, big man, to find yourself brought so_ _**low** _ _?"_

He crashed to the ground, and he wobbled precariously when he picked himself up.

_"Tony! Tony, don't you dare! I've gone through way too much of your crap to die by you shooting me in the face in the middle of the damn tundra!"_

_"Who's Happy?"_

_Captain America would not leave a man behind would he? I feel I have to confess to Cap when I see him again._

He was standing, hands on his knees, a cacophony of shouts from the others echoing in his ears. He was shivering, teeth chattering uncontrollably, in the emptiness of the Arctic tundra. He was staring in a mirror, hair shaved and dyed blond, beyond recognition by even his own brain. He was on his knees in Afghanistan, all the way back to the start to meet his end.

_"You killed Captain America, you killed Janet! But there you are! Who's next, Tony?"_

_"I win."_

His body crumbled. His vision went black.

* * *

A damned Skrull invasion, the infestation dank in every corner of every agency that he was in charge of. The entire world that he had doomed with his own short-sighted arrogance. The failure clawed at him from within and battered him from without. He should have known. The fall was his to take, and every last drop of blame was deserved.

Hoisted from Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., stripped of his duties, his company, and his friends (no, but that last one he threw away on his own), and replaced by a lunatic who was in the right place at the right time.

There was very little left to salvage from the wreckage he has wrought, but damned if he wouldn't die trying.

He could feel himself losing his mind, losing everything that made him _him._ He listened to Volume One of Introduction to Electrical Engineering over and over like some broken record, and he still couldn't tell you what a Fourier transform is. Iron Man could hide the rest of him, imperfections and all, but there was nothing nowhere that could account for his mind. He thought he might rather die than live like this. Chalk that up to one of the shittiest things he's ever thought, and he's had far too many of those.

It was okay. This would all be over soon, and Osborn would never get his hands on the names of his friends. Pepper would be happy with Happy (he remembered who he was now, Happy, good old Happy). Steve would be proud of him.

He didn't remember how to move the armor. He didn't remember how to fight back. He didn't remember how to feel pain, or how to prevent it, as Osborn drove a fist against the armor's helmet. But he remembered how to beg. He remembered how to breathe, and to form words with the last of them. He remembered how to live, until he didn't anymore.

* * *

Tony woke with a start. He gasped for breath. A drop of something wet ran down the side of his cheek -- he thought it might be blood.

"He's coming out of it now."

"Thank heaven."

Tony flinched at the two figures before him, both of them wearing the same Iron Patriot suit.

"You've been unconscious, Tony. Do you know where you are? Do you know us? Maria and Steve?"

"Let him get his bearings. The blast hit him a lot harder than -- "

"Please." Tony's voice came out as barely a mewl.

"Tony, can you hear me?" The face came into focus, and Tony had no idea how he could have ever mistaken Maria Hill for Norman Osborn. Showed how much he knew. Her voice was sharp with worry.

"Tony, what was that? Please what?" Steve must have been trying to be calming, comforting, but Tony had to say, he was not doing the best job of it at the moment.

"Yeah." Tony took advantage of their worry to avoid Steve's question as he got up -- too quickly, it turned out. He wiped at his forehead and the hand came away only covered in sweat. "Don't worry. I'm back." He was not sure who he's trying to reassure. The memories lingered in his mind and at the edges of his vision, but the sight of his helmet set him back in place. It was new, cutting-edge, and something that didn't belong to that other him. Right here, right now, he was Tony Stark, Avenger, and no fugitive. He reached for the helmet and a sharp pain shot behind his right eye. He couldn't prevent the grunt of distress from escaping him.

"Tony? What is it? Are you hurt?" Steve demanded. Tony felt Steve move, trying to touch him, offering comfort to ground him in place.

"It's nothing, Steve,” Tony said sharply, flinching away. He felt Steve still. “Stood up too fast and all the blood rushed to my head." As if in answer, his head throbbed. A scene not from the memories he's just regained flashed before his eyes, a black-and-white outline of someone in a bed, but the texture of the scene was filled in, not by visual details, but with binary ones and zeroes. The image shorted out as quickly as it appeared and the pain it left behind was searing.

Memories weren't supposed to look like that. _Nothing_ was supposed to look like that, and that was all the answer Tony needed before grabbing his helmet and jamming it over his head.

"Where are you going?" Maria stepped in front of him the moment he turns around. All Tony could see right now was how Maria looked pressed up against the wall, legs wrapped around his torso, pliant beneath his fingers in a way she never was under his command. He shook the thought away. If Tony couldn't keep it together around a teammate he'd once slept with, he'd have had a very short stint with the Avengers.

"I have to go. It's important." Something in his voice must have convinced her, because her eyes widened and she took a step back. She held a hand out as if placating him.

"Okay. Watch yourself," she said. In that instant, she sounded just like she had when she was his second-in-command.

"Tony, wait, don't you think you should -- " Steve called out, obviously still not deterred as Tony shouldered his way past him. "Tony, come back!"

But Tony was already out of the tower and gone.

* * *

Nearly five hours of non-stop flight later, Tony touched down on solid ground. Troy, Iron Metropolitan, city of the future, didn't gleam with promise down here in the Core. But Tony wasn't interested in the future right now. What he needed were answers to his past.

It was a simple matter to figure. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Norman Osborn, cascading harddrive failure, especially alarming when said drive was his brain. Memories with no more physical basis, that should have been lost to time and circumstance, suddenly remembered. God, did he hate magic. Luckily, he knew someone here who shared his taste, and more importantly, might have some idea of what to do.

"Arno's in his lab?" Tony called out, flipping his faceplate up and allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness. His brother still didn't take too well to direct light, natural or artificial, and Tony had factored that in when repurposing this place for his sake. Then again, it was the least he could do, especially when soon thereafter he'd gone and hoisted responsibility of an entire city on the guy whose life experience had consisted of laying in bed hooked up to a respirator and watching play-by-plays of the world running merrily along outside the walls of his room.

"Affirmative," H.E.L.E.N. replied.

The door to the lab opened the moment it came into sight. Looked like Arno was amenable to him today. His brother had his bouts of moodiness, but unlike Tony, hadn't gained enough life experience to hide it effectively.

"Hi, Tony." Arno smiled at him, but Tony could see the wariness spelled all over his face. A holographic screen was between them, the projection filled up with lines of code. The code was flipped from Tony's perspective, but he had poured over this program for too many hours to not recognize it on first glance. Good -- it's what he had come here for in the first place.

"I need to talk to you about Extremis."

The hesitant smile vanished in a blink. "Tony, we've discussed this. I'm not remaking Extremis without the most stringent precautions; I know what Extremis can do when handled irresponsibly. I've never hurt people by my own negligence, but I've seen it happen." Arno's words were pointed and he tilted his head. "But other people having shortcomings means that I don't have to learn from my own mistakes. I can learn from theirs. If you trust me, then you can also trust the way I want to change the world." The words were rehearsed perfectly, and they might have worked out for him, if this was the scenario he had expected.

"I'm not here for that, not today." Tony shook his head and waved a hand around. "I'm not here to talk about what Extremis can do to others. I'm here because of what Extremis did to _me._ "

It was easy enough to figure after the first few flashes of what had to be memory that had cut through him over his flight, leaving nearly crippling pain in their wake. Each vision had contained countless ones and zeros vaguely in the shape of people or objects. It was like the world filtered through a computer's vision, but there was no translator for the programming that made up his perception. If a brain could understand the sensory information fed into it, turn the nonsense into sense and act as a metaphorical computer, then this information made up purely of base-2 had needed a literal computer. And there had been one, once upon a time.

Arno hummed softly after Tony finished his explanation. "This Watcher's eye recovered your lost memories, but memories are a storage function of the brain. If the brain is incompatible with the data input it's being asked to read..."

"It's like asking a CD player to read Blu-ray," Tony finished gruffly. "But it's not as simple as just a failure to boot. It's acting more like corrupted data."

"Uh-huh." Arno tapped the side of his head with a finger. "Extremis rewrote your neural wiring. The program itself was irrevocably damaged beyond use by the Skrulls and the information stored in your brain by it was wiped soon thereafter, but the physical effect it had on you still remains." He crossed his arms, and he brushed a hand over his face with a frustrated sigh. "That's why the memories are trying to take hold, even if it's impossible at this point. Your brain no longer has the capability to comprehend that data."

"Exactly. And you're the best person to ask about Extremis and where I should go from here." The best person alive, at least. The intricacies of Maya's relationship with Tony was something lost to the memories currently assaulting the framework of his mind, but there could have been no doubt that she, as architect of the techno-organic virus, would have been the person to go to, in a more merciful world.

"I've lived with a lot of things I didn't want to out of necessity. But this?" Tony mirrored Arno's earlier action. "This isn't necessary," he spoke from between his fingers. He had lived with weak hearts, mechanical hearts, and armored chestplates that always seemed to land him in situations an inch from death anyway, but something that would compromise his mind? Not only was it unnecessary, it was unacceptable.

Arno nodded and turned. "Understood. I'll get started on the reprogramming ASAP."

"What?"

"That's why you came to me, isn't it?" Arno tilted his head at Tony. "The hardware is still there, but the software is wiped. I'm sure I can code an Extremis that bypasses the physical changes initially required to interface cybernetically with the armor."

"I knew _that._ I meant what, as in what makes you think I want that!?" Tony snapped before he could stop himself. Arno's brows furrowed and his lips thinned.

"Forgive me, apparently I still have trouble reading social cues when put in practice," Arno said quietly. "Allow me to explain myself. We know your brain retains the neural rewriting from the initial virus. We know that the memories that are causing you grief and misery, physically in this case, are trying to access those cranial regions. The only solutions are to remove those memories, which were implanted in you via magic, which I understand less and hate even more than you do, or we upgrade your brain again to its original Extremis functioning levels to compensate." When he finished, his eyes looked like they could have glared daggers into Tony.

Tony took a deep breath, his own eyes closed under Arno's scrutiny. "...Yeah. Yeah. You're right." It really had been the logical conclusion to make from Arno's perspective, Tony berated himself. "Sorry. I didn't mean to take this out on you." What had he meant, then? On the run from Osborn, it hadn't been his imminent capture and death that had accelerated his breakdown. It had been feeling himself losing his mind, his entire worldview crumbling, that killed him faster than anything else. He had turned to Maria. He had turned to _Pepper_ for comfort in those times of weaknesses. He'd turned any feelings they had for him right back against them. Re-experiencing those times all over again in a torrent of memories...he had run away again, to someone who was safe, a bystander who would remain on his side even if he was falling apart all the while.

Is that what he really thought of Arno as? Just someone outside of the wreck that was Iron Man? No one else knew about their true relationship, and Arno was holed away halfway across the world, hidden safely away from the rest of Tony's life. There was no answer Tony really wanted to hear to that question.

As if in answer, another memory flashed through his mind. The sight was blinding white this time, accompanied by a deafening static that felt like it could blow out his ears. Tony could feel his fingers tremble as they gripped the sides of his helmet.

"Tony?" A force jarred through the vision. Arno shook him again. "Tony!"

"I'm fine," Tony gasped more out of instinct than reassurance. "I'm back."

"I didn't realize the visions would affect you like that." Arno's voice was full of worry and he almost looked angry. "You really didn't consider coming here to find some way to fix it?" No, he was definitely angry. Arno took a step back and shook his head. "I'm no therapist, Tony," he said, voice gone surprisingly soft. "Nor am I a neurologist, and the _last_ thing I want to do is fiddle with someone else's brain without knowing exactly what the results will be." He squared his shoulders. "I'm a Stark. Engineer, futurist, someone with the mind and the means to change the world. If I hear about a problem, _least_ of all one related to the only family I have left, and it has to do with something under my control? You might be the type to smile and grit your teeth when it hurts, but I'm not going to be the type to stand by and watch. Not anymore." His eyes bore into Tony's as if in challenge. Tony looked away and sighed. For someone who needed a suit of life support armor to speak, he could talk it out with the best of them.

"Thanks. That means a lot," _coming from you_ , _the one person deserving of thinking otherwise,_ "but Extremis is dangerous. It was practically a miracle that I didn't bleed out in agony the first time I used it. Who's to say that luck holds out for me this time around?" _Who's to say I even want to use it this time around?_ Maybe Tony couldn't tell you from memory, but Extremis sounded just like his Icarus tale, and he wouldn't lose sight of that moral. Don't change the man, _can't_ change the man, there's nothing fixable there anymore, anyway. All you could do was better the tools at his disposal to compensate, instead.

"The first time you used it, Extremis could barely be labeled a prototype, unfit to use on anything other than lab rats in any place with real regulations. It's been years now. The world changes and technology evolves to adapt." The holographic screen in front of Arno shifted away from code, to an image outlining of a body and specs detailing...huh.

"You have my brain scans?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Arno shrugged. "And besides, Bruce Banner used it and he's fine," Arno tacked on in an after thought.

"Bruce Banner spontaneously gains ten times his mass whenever he gets ticked off. And you should know best of all, under all these bells and whistles, I'm just your normal, everyday human."

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Arno mused as he zoomed into a section of the screen.

"I'm not going to be able to stop you from doing this, am I?"

Arno flashed a grin at him. "Glad we reached an understanding. The new-and-improved serum will be at your side the moment it's finished. But I can't force it on you. I'm your secret adoptive brother, not your mother," Arno chuckled wryly. "I won't need to, anyway. I'm a Stark. I know how well we take to bodily modifications."

The most alarming thing about that was, both of them knew Arno spoke nothing but the truth.

* * *

**Now:**

Despair flooded through him, overwriting, drowning out every last piece of code, robbing him of all else.

 _"It wasn't worth it,"_ Tony sobbed.

Another sound rattled him, forced him back into the present, and there was Thor ( _\- a manic Thor blasting lightning straight through Bill Foster's chest -_ ) , and Clint ( _-utter disgust written across his face as he shoved the shield back into Tony's hands -)_ and Natasha and Hyperion and Kevin and Stevestevestevesteve _ **steve**_ \--

Thor stepped forward, the weight of his single movement echoing throughout the room.

"We would have words with thee, Stark."

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much once again to [iloome](http://archiveofourown.org/users/iloome) for the great beta and support. Also, thank you to [Sineala](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala) for all the cheerleading. I definitely needed the encouragement with this chapter!

Tony stumbled back, straight into the desk behind him. The syringe clattered to the floor.

“It's time for the lies to stop, Tony.” Steve advanced toward him like he was ready to charge. The Steve he saw was so angry and beautiful and wholly alive that Tony's hand flexed with the need to touch.

“Steve,” Tony whispered. 

“No one was here during the Banner attack except you.” Steve's voice was pitched low and guttural.” I think maybe he figured something out. Maybe he caught you in a lie – like you've been lying to me all along.”

Tony stepped forward, the beginnings of a futile attempt at reassurance, and Steve jerked away like it burned.

“I remember.”

Tony remembered too, Steve's rage, his regrets, his tears and his blood-soaked body and everything else Tony had wrought upon him – 

“I remember!” Steve shouted, and the other Avengers flinched. Steve's shoulders were heaving `(Respiratory rate at 160% base level)` as he glared at Tony, eyes bright and terrible in challenge.

“How far have you all taken it, Tony? Have you done the unthinkable yet?” He was trembling now, voice and body and all else.

Tony opened his mouth. Extremis brought them forward, the specs of every last Worldkiller, every single Wide Awake blueprint, Dyson Sphere, Sentinel, rogue planet flashing before his eyes.

“My god, you have, haven't you?” Steve came close enough to make out the blue of his eyes, the grit of his teeth. “So whose moral code cracked first? Was it you? Was it Stephen, or Namor, or T'Challa? Which one of you broke first, Tony? Who was it?” he demanded, voice rising. “ _Who was it?”_

“Me,” Tony said.

Steve reeled back, eyes squeezing shut. Maybe he left them closed for too long, for when they opened, they were glassed over. Steve's fist shot out toward Tony, too quick to notice for all that Tony was unwilling to react. Tony braced himself for the blow, but Steve's fingers closed around his shoulder like a vice, instead. Steve shook him, hard. 

“Why?” His question sounded like a broken plea. “Why? How could you...?” He shook him again, and again, words now lost. When Steve let go with a small shove, Tony fell forward, sinking to his knees and staring up at Steve.

“Okay, enough.” Clint reached out to clasp Steve's shoulder, anchoring him. “Trust got you through the door and up to this point, Steve, but I don't know what the hell is going on here.”

Steve couldn't meet Tony's eyes. He shuddered as he took a breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was thick. “What's happening is that the Illuminati has re-formed. All the world's greatest minds have set themselves up to be the final authority for the planet Earth.” Steve raised a finger in accusation. “In his spare time, our colleague here – my friend – has been running around with Reed Richards and pals, blowing up parallel worlds to save our own.” 

The stunned silence choked the room. 

“This cannot be true.” Even Hyperion sounded shaken. 

“He just admitted to it himself,” Kevin whispered, but everyone heard him regardless.

“It's not – Not – ” Tony couldn't find the words nor even the will to move, to explain. _Not yet._ They had been stupidly, overwhelmingly lucky, but he couldn't mitigate everyone's horror. No, Tony remained trapped as the other Avengers glanced between him and Steve and made their decision. Steve's thumb and forefinger pressed against his eyes, kneading them.

“Then, my friend, it seems you have much to answer for.” Thor gazed down at him, passing his verdict. Tony couldn't bring himself to nod, but that must have been answer enough.

Steve lowered his hand from his face, looked up and stared straight ahead at some distant place. “How is it...that you're repentant now?” he muttered. “Weren't you going to tell me a story? Try to snuff out this idea running through my mind?” His voice sounded close to breaking. “Well, you can't, not anymore,” he spat instead, hand closing into a fist. “It's overwhelming – all-consuming – and I can't shut it off.”

“You've been using all of us this entire time.” His voice was barely a whisper.

Tony's head dropped. How many times in one second could every single scene play over and over in his head, Extremis helpfully supplying each and every unequivocal detail? Steve's blood on the shield, the endless rain at Arlington, his death at Tony's hands – Tony buried his face in his hand, nails digging into the skin. Is that where the incursions would lead him to, as well? There was nothing left in this world, this universe, that could make him walk down that wretched path to hell again. Not if that was what lay at the end, damned be everything.

“It wasn't worth it.”

A single breath of shocked laughter. “You know,” Steve shook his head, “I asked you that once?” Something halfway between a growl and a sob escaped his throat. “And you _used me_!” He made to lunge for Tony. There was a brief struggle as Hyperion and Kevin restrained him. Thor held out his hand before them, cutting them off and peering down at Tony with an impassive indifference.

“Do we consider this your surrender, Tony?”

What else did Tony have? _Everything dies_ , anyway. No one could look at him. Clint's teeth were clenched. His breath came out in a small hiss. Steve shook his head with a scoff and shrugged off Hyperion and Kevin's arms.

“Is this just another one of your games, Tony?” he snarled. “That's it? We're supposed to believe that this, one little confrontation, and you've given _up!?_ ” He pivoted on his heel and put his fist through a nearby machine. Tony winced as a communication channel tore off from the Extremis network with it.

“Steve,” Natasha urged as she grabbed his arm. “Enough. We're Avengers.” She jerked her head toward Tony. “Don't want to be accused of undermining due process now, do we,” she said wryly.

Steve turned, the expanse of his back to Tony. As untouchable as he had been in the Helicarrier, lain on that – but he was _alive_ , and as the thought struck Tony he wanted to sob with relief.

_You're here you're alive you're alive you're **alive** -_

The sound of footsteps jarred Tony to his senses. Steve's head turned to the side, toward Natasha.

“Get him out of my sight.”

Thor hoisted Tony to his feet. Something desperate, near panic, rose within Tony, rising up and suffocating him as he was forced to watch Steve walk away, Extremis painting memories of blood and death over every inch of him.

* * *

Tony had known, of course he'd known about it all, poured over every detail as he searched for what he had lost. The war, the failed parley, the gunshots on the courthouse steps, every operation he had run as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. (that he still had clearance to, at least, so perhaps on an objective level he hadn't known very much at all).

But there was so much he never could have discovered in newsreels and live television reports. All of which had shown, from every single possible angle, Captain America in tears as he surrendered at the end of the war, but none of which could have shown Tony the haunted look in Steve's eyes at the mansion when they both came to the realization that one of the greatest friendships they had ever known, one that stood the test of intergalactic war and alcoholism – wasn't enough to overcome a piece of paper. Tony had watched himself have a sobbing breakdown at the funeral, watched himself and felt chilled all the while, but now Tony knew that numbness was a lie, could remember the questions and regrets bubbling up in his throat, strangling him with millions standing witness, and how there was nothing Tony could bring himself to say about Captain America's life without the question that blanked out all else of his death.

_(whywhywhywhywhy – )_

For all his futurist self saw, Tony could never have even conceived what it would have felt like to say goodbye to Steve Rogers.

He sat hunched over, elbows on his knees, eyes trained on the ground. The Avengers had never planned on interrogating their captives, and it showed. The cell was barren, dim lighting barely highlighting the dark corners of the wide-open space. He had overheard a hushed argument earlier, about the viability of putting him in a cell in a Tower he had built from the ground up.

“ _We can't let him escape. Cap's barely given us any real explanation, but we'll never get anything if Tony gets out – ”_

“ _Then Iron Man will answer to me, Hawkeye,” Thor muttered._

Of course, he shouldn't have been able to hear that conversation. But none of the Avengers knew that when Tony closed his eyes, the skeleton of the entire Tower was laid out in front of him, thrumming beats through his body as every eye and ear in the place answered to him. None of the Avengers knew, even though they had presumably stripped him of all his weapons and armor, about the translocator embedded in his palm that ensured his escape, safely hidden away as long as the threat of incursion didn't loom. None of them knew, nor would they need to at this point.

 _Steve's alive_ , Tony repeated to himself over and over. _He's fine. He'll be fine._ What Bruce had asked him, back then, when they had spoken in the conference room, and that Tony didn't know how to respond – he had an answer now.

_I'll do whatever it takes to protect him._

Whatever it takes, yet Tony couldn't bring himself to leave. That escape route was a one way trip. If he used it, he'll never be able to come back, and then he'd never be able to see him again –

_You prepared yourself for this, Stark. You knew it was coming, that there was no way this could last, and now you decide to be too much of a selfish asshole to do what needed to be done?_

Clint was hesitant, hell, Clint still wanted to hear Tony's side of the story. Natasha still had a smidgen of sympathy for him. Thor was...Thor still had enough comradely feelings toward Tony to assure him of fair treatment. So much for burning all of his bridges before defecting.

God, what was he thinking? He'd fucked up once again, that was what he was thinking. But the moment he had seen Steve, his mind short-circuited, plans crumbling away into dust – 

At least it had happened while Steve was alive, this time.

One more time, that was all Tony needed. He just needed to see Steve one last time, and then he would – he would go blow up however many Earths it took to keep him alive. Steve would come for him here, Tony was sure of it, was as sure of it as knowing that the Steve who would come for him would never want anything to do with Tony Stark again –

Tony closed his eyes and numbly opened up the channel that had been pinging him all evening.

“ _Tony!? What the hell's wrong with you? You knew the moment you injected yourself I'd be alerted, right? You're the last person I want to lose contact with for over two hours the moment you inject yourself with a technovirus!”_

“ _Arno,_ ” Tony barely drummed up a passing notice, let alone excitement, at how Extremis projected the words rolling across his vision, _“As of now, Troy is solely under your name. I'm signing over the papers and handling all the legalities as we speak.”_

A stunned silence. _“What happened?”_

“ _Nothing to do with Extremis, I assure you. Worked like a charm.”_ Tony paused, throat closing up, though it wasn't like you needed vocal cords to communicate with Extremis, anyway. _“It was perfect.”_ Yes, everything had come back perfectly and shattered things completely. 

“ _...What are you planning to do?”_ Arno's voice shook. _“Why are you only answering me now? God, Tony, if it's – killing yourself isn't the answer.”_

Tony had to suppress a morbid grin at that. For the amount of time they had known each other, it was eerie how well they could read the other.

The truth to Arno's unspoken question was – n ot yet, at least. Depended on the definition of answer, maybe. If Steve's survival was the answer, then, in a sense, Tony had already killed some part of himself. Maybe it was the most important part. Steve would agree. 

“ _I'm an Avenger,”_ ha-ha, it had always been Steve's Avengers, so such a title had been soundly revoked, _“death is always in the cards for us. Ah, look at that, gotta go. Thanks. Sorry,”_ he blurted out. 

Tony raised his head, unable to distract himself further from the two people there, unignorable now that they stood before him and not filtered through the distance of a video camera lens. Thor looked troubled, and Steve looked, well. Imagine how a wholly good hero would react to their villain, and that was Steve for you, or at least, the Steve he wanted you to see.

“Tony,” Thor said quietly. “Have you considered what you would like to inform us of?” 

“No,” was Tony's automatic response. “Or, no, maybe I have, but that maybe hinges on whether I get to talk to Steve or not. Alone.” 

“The problem is, that's exactly what the Captain argued for himself.” 

“Please, Thor,” Tony said hollowly, the pretense only maintainable for that single instant now vanished. “We need this. You know we need this.” He bowed his head. He would have gotten to his knees, if his legs didn't feel so useless he was afraid he might just topple over. Thor had to understand, this was it. This, after the anger had simmered down but not yet been replaced by bitterness, hatred, would be Tony's final chance to talk to him. _Just one last time, please. Please –_

Steve didn't look at him. “I won't hurt him,” he said forcefully, like he was trying to convince more than just Thor of it.

Thor leveled an even stare at Steve, who remained undeterred. “I cannot say if you have ever been the best at assessing yourself, Steve, not when it's a matter of Steven Rogers and not of Captain America.”

Steve bristled. “Who's to say this matter _isn't_ one between Avengers?” 

“Don't fool yourself into thinking that is the whole of it. Such a deed would be unforgivable, if you were to underestimate the immensity of what this meeting means.” Thor's expression darkened. “It cannot be as simple as you believe it will be. I have had my heart closed off, before, in meetings of great purport. Ones where it shouldn't have been, not when I thought of the one I was speaking to as a brother. I would not recommend you commit such a slight against years of shared history here and now.” 

After a heavy silence, Steve spoke. “I understand. Now, you'd leave us, Thor, if you value this friendship.” He made no point of making clear as to which one.

Thor looked between the two of them before shifting his stance. “Because I believe my presence here will hinder matters, I will leave you two be. I trust you will act in accordance with the faith I have, and always have had, in you. However, I am not foolhardy enough to not monitor the proceedings, and if there is any chance this escalates – ” He trailed off, a contrite expression crossing his face, before he turned his back to them.

The door closed behind Thor, the echo of his footsteps shut off. Steve and Tony's eyes remained on the door as the present situation dawned on them. Steve took a long, shuddering breath before bringing his attention to Tony. 

They stared at each other, a silence unbroken between them. All the ways of taking control of the conversation from the get-go: _“Do you want to talk about it?”_ or _“There are much easier ways to get alone in a room with me, you know,”_ vanished in the instant. Tony couldn't breathe. 

Faced with Steve and nothing but Steve, nothing else registered. How could it? It had taken three gunshots to figure this out the last time. Tony tried saying it in his head, just once, to a Steve who was living and breathing, before it was too late again. 

_I love you._

Tony looked away, but thanks to Extremis, the words still crossed in a stream in front of him, perfectly clear even through suddenly blurred vision. His throat seized. He blinked hard to clear it all away, the tears and weakness and regrets, and then the words wouldn't cease filling his whole sight.

_IloveyouIloveyouIloveyousodamnmuchiloveyouiloveyouiloveyoupleasepleaseplease_

“How many?” 

Tony jolted out of the haze. “What?” he croaked.

“I asked, how many? How much damage have you caused already?” Steve's eyes were startlingly bright. “I need to know what kind of man you really are, now that it turns out I've never really known. So tell me.”

Tony gulped. Why – this was the easy part, wasn't it? He looked away. “There have been three incursions since the Infinity Gauntlet.”

Steve inhaled sharply, and Tony let his voice turn monotone, allowed Extremis to take over his output. The first thing it did was loop the video feed of the proceedings between them. That would suffice to deceive anyone watching the cameras for now.

“The first Earth had been marked by Galactus. The second Earth had been razed by Mapmakers. Mapmakers are...anyway, there was nothing left to save. The third Earth was destroyed from its own universe's end before we could do anything.”

“Don't say it like that,” Steve hissed. Tony looked up, and Steve's hand was gripping his forehead with enough pressure it must have ached. “Don't say it like you meant to save anyone in the first place!” 

“What do you think we're trying to do right now, Steve?”

“You can say that now, after you've wriggled out of the hole you've chosen by the skin of your teeth, but what happens when there's an incursion that won't let you slip away, Tony? What will you do when your luck runs out?” 

“Ah, but you remembered the answer to that just a few hours ago, didn't you, Steve?”

“You – !” 

Tony didn't brace himself. He knew how it felt to face death by the hands of Steve Rogers, and this wasn't it. Steve had always been predictable, and the fact that he could evoke the same intensity of emotion from Tony every time regardless was one of the reasons Tony lov –

“I won't allow it.” Steve's hand clenched into a fist. “I'll stop you from doing this, no matter what it takes.”

“You won't.” A short bark of laughter escaped Tony. “That's why we're here in the first place. There's no such thing as doing whatever it takes for you.” There can't be. Steve didn't deserve that. He couldn't be allowed to hate himself, want to reel back in disgust every time he saw himself in the mirror –

“Do you know how you sound now, _Stark,”_ Steve's eyes blazed as he knelt to eye-level with Tony. “in that bubble of yours? I will push myself past any limits for what I believe. Always have, always will. What I don't do, and what you and the Illuminati have taken the liberty of doing, is deciding that you have the right to determine whether other people can factor into your _own_ evaluation of what it means to do whatever it takes.

“I'll stop you from doing this, no matter what it takes. From me, that means I'll do anything in my own power and not from atop other people's unknowing sacrifices. From me, that means the only way you're going to stop me is to kill me. I thought I knew once, but now I don't know anymore if you're willing to do that. Are you, Tony?”

Well that was it, wasn't it? Something within Tony crumbled. Steve wouldn't stand down. Tony wouldn't stop.

_To save you, I have to kill you?_

It took too long for Tony to realize he was shaking his head uselessly, tears stinging at the corner of his eyes. 

“I can't.” Tony couldn't recognize his own voice, hoarse and weak. “I can't do this. It killed you the last time. I can't do this knowing that I can lose everything else, even myself, but I can't lose you.”

“What are you going on about?”

“I'm saying I don't care anymore. A world that has to sacrifice you isn't one that's worth protecting.” Tony tried to laugh at the irony, and a choked sob shook him. “That's my answer for you. Are you satisfied with what I've become now?”

The Illuminati had always been driven by selfishness of some sort, but now Tony had gone and given himself completely over to the other, wrong choice. They had called themselves monsters before, but only now could Tony truly comprehend what that meant.

But the reality of the matter was, Tony just couldn't give a shit anymore.

He could feel Steve trembling next to him. “What is it you can't do?”

“The right thing.” Tony hinged on hysterical as the silence hung over them, heavy and dank. Until suddenly his world was upended, turned upside down as his back slammed into the ground.

Steve stared down at him, hands digging into Tony's shoulders, body trapping Tony's beneath him. His eyes were wide and bright blue. His breaths came in harsh pants.

“Right? You call this right?” Steve could barely choke out his words, strangled by something Tony could no longer identify. “You used me! You betrayed me!” Tony closed his eyes as Steve shook him, the solid, freezing floor offering little solace from what was in front of him, the charged look in Steve's eyes and a ferocity that told of things that Tony couldn't read. “I thought – when you wanted to start a new team it was – I was so – it was all a lie.” Steve ducked his head, voice wrecked, battered down to a whisper, and what was that, what had _Tony_ done to him?

None of this was right, of course it couldn't be, but it wasn't wrong, either. Wrong was the pool of blood that soaked the courthouse steps, wrong was the blood-spattered shield illuminated by the harsh light of the Helicarrier, wrong was the blinding white tundra of the Arctic the last time Tony said goodbye to the one person who always made things right.

“I won't kill you to stop you. I won't fight you. You can leave me here, in this cell, until everything dies.”

Would that happen, still? The other Illuminati surely wouldn't allow it to pass, not after giving up kingdoms and souls and families in the meanwhile. So Tony could willfully turn a blind eye to the atrocities, just like the worst of the men he'd ever known. Funny how that could be used as a metric in comparison to committing genocide.

No, it didn't matter, nothing mattered. Even if the world ended today, at least he and Steve would fall together. Not apart, never apart, never again. As long as Steve was alive. As long as Tony didn't have to be the one to end him.

“Why?” Steve gritted out through clenched teeth. “What's the meaning of this?”

“Do you have to know?” Tony tried to tilt his head, pull out a smile strained at the corners. “You win. I'm in your hands, now. Literally. Congratulations.”

A harsh snarl came in reply, and Tony's head hit the ground with a blunt smack as Steve shook him hard. “Don't joke with me! The Tony Stark I knew – I thought I knew – would never allow himself to be incapacitated, incapable, _incompetent!_ It wouldn't have been this easy! He would have fought back. He wouldn't surrender, no matter the cost!” 

“You did,” Tony said. That had been a wave of numb shock, seeing Steve amidst the destruction, tears streaming freely down his face after those he'd sworn to protect stopped him themselves. “When you realized what you had done, and that no matter how much right was on your side, that the wrong wasn't worth the cost. You surrendered.”

Steve was shaking his head. “I'm not you, and that's what matters. Because you wouldn't do that, because you always think you know what's right and you won't _listen_ and you talk yourself into these horrific acts because you can't see what you've done to me – done to everyone else in the meantime!” 

Tony could have laughed. Of course he had seen what he had wrought. He just knew it could get worse, all the way until the worst had occurred. And right, of course Steve didn't know, that Tony could push himself past his limits too, stand defeated at the end of things. That wasn't really fair to Steve, though, because Tony hadn't known, either, not until a few hours ago.

“Hell,” Steve continued, “what am I saying? You don't even remember how far you're really capable of going.” 

They had discussed it once, when Steve told Tony he couldn't hold him responsible for memories he no longer had, and that meant there was nothing to say about it. They would put it behind them and build a new future together. But by the way Steve was having difficulty keeping his voice even and how his grip loosened around Tony's shoulders, it looked like even Steve couldn't keep his emotions hidden under wraps here.

“I remember.” 

To his credit, it only took Steve a few seconds before his eyes widened. “Those memories – you said they were gone.”

“Yeah. Well, gone to everyone except the dead guy on the moon.” 

Steve dropped his head, took a hand and covered his face with it. “What did you see?”

“Everything,” Tony said without any hesitation. It wasn't like it had felt like there had been a gap before, but that meant nothing. If Tony didn't line up with what surrounded him, there was really only one logical conclusion to make. A personal reality couldn't argue with the truths of the world.

With that utterance, the fight dropped out of Steve. His shoulders slumped, and he shuffled back, releasing Tony. When Tony lifted himself up on his elbows, Steve was sitting back on his haunches, eyes trained on the ground.

“You didn't kill me,” Steve said quietly.

“I could have stopped it. I didn't. So yes, I did.”

“That's not how it works, and you know that.”

“Do I? Let's face it, Steve, we don't have the right to only be reactive. Most of the time we can't help it, it's not like we can know the whims of every villain out there. But when the intelligence is there, and we didn't act upon it, then who else can be blamed?”

Steve's look was long and cold, like he was searching for something. “So if you surrender to me,” he began slowly, “and we end up not finding anything to solve the incursions, which _won't happen_ , but say that did happen...then you would be a murderer, anyway?”

“Yes. It would be an even more heinous crime,” Tony couldn't help it, he had to grin at the sheer fuckery of it all, “knowing that I could have done something to prevent it.”

“And you just told me you'd do this?” Steve was unsettled all over again, voice trembling. “Even though for you it's the worst scenario imaginable?”

“Yes.” Tony struggled for a bit, and the words came out before any filter caught them. “For you.” _Always for you._

And that was enough. Steve finally _got it,_ Tony could see it, by the way he almost jerked back in shock, his fingers twitching and a soft gasp shaking him. Right, of course Steve had his hands all over Tony when he thought Tony was a dirty traitor who hated him, but what about now? Steve couldn't even meet his eyes after the confession. The tension between them turned darker and more intimate, twisted into something that Tony couldn't just make flippant remarks and throw smug smiles toward. 

“I'm not,” Steve said, quiet, but it tore through the silence regardless. “What the hell? I'm not worth that. What type of perverted worldview do you have....!?” His voice rose, infusing with that familiar, safe, righteous anger. “You can't tell me that, not after – What was all this, then?” His eyes narrowed, and they both jumped when Steve slammed a fist against the floor. “No, wait, I get it, but I don't _understand_. You didn't want me to live with this, either, knowing I'm taking a stance on the fate of the world? That I might have to stand and face my decision in the eye and then have to look myself in the mirror afterward?” He looked ready to explode. “That's not something for you to decide! You took that from me! You took away my choice, and now it doesn't even matter that you tried to...to what? Protect me? It doesn't make a difference! Because that's where your path leads in the end, with nothing left to live for because you burned everything you ever had! Why don't you see that? Damn it. _Damn it!”_ Steve sunk to the ground, but his breath remained harsh. “Damn you. I was happy, and it was all a lie. I don't even know anymore what I'm angrier at you for, for taking from me.”

Tony's mouth went dry. Steve's eyes were glassy, and he kept them frighteningly open, lest the tears run free. Tony could do that to Steve. Tony _had_ done that to Steve. 

No matter how often he argued against it in the midst of the situation at hand, Tony would protect that unwavering idealism. The optimism that, really, had been the only thing that carried Tony through this incursion business from the beginning, the hope that they would find some other way, somehow, someday. Tony did what was necessary, but Steve did what was _needed._

So what did it say now, that Tony had left Steve like this, questioning himself, having lost faith in his vision of the world? That was exactly what Tony had been trying to prevent.

God, what had been the point after all?

It took several seconds and Steve's eyes shooting to Tony's side before Tony realized something was off. When he glanced down to his left hand, it was covering something bright and shining. Tony turned his hand over.

_7:59:22_

Before Tony could come to his senses, he was reaching for it with his other hand, ready to trigger the teleportation device embedded there. Someone grabbed his hand.

Steve stared at him, wild desperation rampant in his eyes. “Tony, please – ”

“I won't,” Tony said, and this wasn't a lie, couldn't be a lie. He lowered his hand and looked back up. “Sorry about that.” Steve's grip didn't falter.

“This isn't right,” Steve said, having difficulty in forming the words. “I can't just sit here and watch that thing go off. I can't do nothing, knowing what that means.”

“You stopped me,” Tony said. “How are you going to stop everyone else?” He couldn't resist a short huff of laughter. He doubted any of the other Illuminati members were hopelessly in love with Steve Rogers.

“Can you?” Steve asked. “You're one of them, maybe you can – or – maybe you'll get lucky again, don't have to resort to – Tony, _please_.” He squeezed, gesture dangerously close to begging, then brought his other hand to Tony's chin to tilt it upwards so that they looked into each other's eyes. Steve's eyes were wide, and...if Tony could venture a guess, they were _frightened._

“You can trust me?” Tony's words came out empty. Steve's hold on him tightened in response. Steve squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them Tony could see how he forced his expression to smooth out, set into stone.

“Will you work with me?” he asked simply.

With that, Tony was at a standstill. If he said yes, then he was throwing away all the effort that had driven him to the brink for the past year. If he said yes, how could he call himself someone who tried for others' sakes, rather than his own?

If he said no, Steve would never look at him like this again. If he said no, Steve might not ever look at _anything_ ever again, as hellbent as he always got. 

Tony considered lying.

Steve pulled Tony forward, and god, Tony couldn't lie to that, not anymore. Tony nodded slowly and got a small, choked sob in answer. They were far too close, every detail clear between them, their breaths intermingling. Just a little closer, was Tony's first thought, if he just leaned in a bit. Steve's gaze had dropped to Tony's mouth, before the grip on Tony's shoulders tightened and loosened in a second.

Steve's mouth caught Tony's, bruising and desperate. Instinct demanded that Tony surged back into the kiss. This wasn't (couldn't) be a matter of love and longing anymore. This was just being lost in each other, instead of their own minds and moralities and warped senses of self.

They parted several long moments later, foreheads leaning into each other. Steve opened his eyes. Their blue burned where they pierced Tony from underneath an almost invisible fringe of golden lashes.

“Come back to me.”

Something was fluttering in Tony's throat.

“Always.” 

Tony touched his right index and middle fingers to the center of his left hand, and was gone.

* * *

In the city of the dead, nary a whisper could be heard. Warmth, fittingly enough, came here to languish, in the proud, austere lines of times aged by. The cold that remained caught Tony's skin, made the hairs there stand on end.

The rest of his body felt numb, the steps he took like those out of a daze. His mind ran through the sequence of events again and again. He could replay them if he wished, but the human part of his mind rejected the idea.

Somewhere, somehow, he and Steve had lost their way. Tony couldn't pin down the point of divergence, but they had veered far past matters of life, death, and betrayal.

A scene drifted to the forefront of his thoughts, of a conversation held in the ruins of a failed home and relationship.

_I think it’s a lot more personal than either one of us realized._

Steve had kissed him. Tony had kissed him back. For a conversation that was more likely to end with Steve's fist in Tony's face, that was – Tony's mind blanked, like it had the previous times his mind tried to wrap around the idea.

Steve didn't talk about his romantic entanglements often. But if love amplified all, good and bad and everything that lay in-between, then where it made Tony even more destructive and single-minded, then Steve's all-consuming (justified) anger made more sense in light of that.

Love. Tony tilted his head back and sincerely considered a way to knock himself about, something sharp and biting to jar him out of this tangled mess. Extremis hadn't come with a healing factor this go-around, though. Arno had been sincere when he'd said that this version included no physical changes, which, back then, had only meant the armor remained separate and the RT stayed.

Tony shook his head and dug a fist against his head. He was just looking at this in the wrong direction. It was probably the other way around. Love hadn't led to anger so great it blew past all self-control – rather, Steve's anger had made him so irrational that he kissed Tony. There. Perfect sense.

Now that that was taken care of, Tony opened up a line to the Tower. The video feed showed him Steve sitting in the middle of the room, face turned downwards. He brought up a hand and slammed his face into it.

“What the hell were you thinking, Rogers?” In the middle of the empty room, Tony heard Steve. “Stupid, stupid, letting your actions be dictated by your feelings – damn it!” He grabbed his head with both of his hands and growled, low. Tony couldn't handle watching this anymore, opening a communications channel.

“Hey, Steve.” 

Steve jumped, on his feet within the instant. He wheeled around, glaring down each corner of the ceiling. The cameras were inconspicuous enough so that Steve ended up focusing on a spot 45 degrees to the right of Tony's line of sight. That might have been for the better, although Tony could still see Steve's face.

“What? Have you come back to laugh at me for falling for this, too?”

“I'm not back anywhere,” Tony said smoothly enough, to his surprise. “I'm forwarding my coordinates and other pertinent information to your Avengers ID, although I venture you could take a great guess where I've ended up.”

“We stripped you of everything.” If Steve were more impetuous, he would have shown the scowl that he was dutifully restraining as he removed his ID from his pocket. “You're not speaking to me using Necropolis's systems. I doubt you could effectively hide this from T'Challa, not when it's his own networks you're working with. What did you not tell me?” 

“Remember Extremis?” 

Steve reacted visibly this time, taking a step forward. The IDs could withstand several hundred pounds of pressure, but Tony wouldn't bet on the card with the way Steve's grip tightened around it until his fist was shaking. “What did you _do,_ Tony?” 

“I injected myself with it again. It's – I didn't want to,” Tony said before he could stop himself. “But I had to.”

“How many times have I heard that?” Steve challenged. “How many times have I thought that hearing that and an apology was enough?” He wasn't looking up at the camera anymore. “How do you expect me to – ” 

“I haven't apologized for this,” Tony interrupted hastily, mouth gone dry. 

“Could you have done this the entire time, with Extremis?” Steve said. “If you could interface with computers, then why did you stay – ”

Of course Tony couldn't tell the truth. He had done a dangerous amount of that lately. “This is why you can trust me, Steve, especially since I haven't actually given you anything to back that up. If you need something concrete so you don't beat yourself up for letting me go – ” Tony could feel Steve's lips pressed against his own, hard and insistent – “then take this as proof. What real reason did I have to deceive you just now? If it was a matter of escape, you wouldn't have even found the tail-end of me when you came to interrogate me.”

Tony couldn't see Steve's eyes, and it took a moment before Steve nodded and looked back up. “Fine. Then we'll make a few things clear, first. You will keep this channel open at all times. If we lose contact, the Avengers _will_ come after you, and it will not be treated as a rescue mission. Your mission objective can be summed up as this: you are there to betray the Illuminati.” He paused to take a breath and rub the back of his hand across his eyes. “You will obtain information about this incursion first and provide us the options available to deal with the threat. Loss of life does not constitute a viable resort.” 

“Got it. Then, I'll be dropping the chit-chat now,” Tony said.

“Understood.” Steve hesitated visibly. “What you promised me, when you left.” Steve's eyes were hooded, hiding his expression. “Keep that promise.”

Tony's chest tightened painfully. “Yes,” was all he could come up with. “I will.” He cut off visual feed of Steve, then, beginning a harried walk through the corridors of the tower while obtaining the layout of Necropolis. He didn't need any more distractions to tug his mind around.

Steve had been wrong in one regard. Tony could certainly take full advantage of T'Challa's systems. It had been an agreement decided upon at the very beginning. Of course, Wakanda's secrets were still protected under metaphorical lock and key in their encrypted dungeon, but anything related to the incursions was shared amongst the Illuminati. At least here, Tony's initial vision of the team remained.

And since Tony could access the information via Extremis, something only two people in the world besides himself knew he could do, then it was a simple matter of masking his tracks on the fly, Extremis facilitating the mental processes, stretching capacity until nearly all centers of his brain could operate at once. It felt like a dull buzz at the back of his mind as Extremis destroyed the electronic footprint Tony left within mere milliseconds.

Tony had never been the best at stealth, but as long as he could track each of the other Illuminati via their translocators, he could slip by unscathed.

Because the truth was, this was enemy territory now, and Tony was a sitting duck without his armor. Intelligence was well and good, and a computerized mind to take full advantage of it was even better, but Tony had faith in and respect for the rest of the Illuminati. Thusly, he didn't have high hopes they wouldn't be suspicious of him if they found him like this, not when he had rerouted his own tracking signature so that he still showed up in New York.

At least if it was matter of obtaining information on the incursions, the goal was simple enough. When Tony reached the room that housed the Bridge, one of the few machines he would still need direct access to, he set straight to work.

The current incursion was with Earth-429001. A team of great heroes, Tony noted numbly as he watched the footage. That must mean they were more likely to cooperate. Maybe they even still had their Infinity Gauntlet, he thought futilely as he watched them fight toe-to-toe with the Mapmakers. His hopes were dashed the moment he saw the Illuminati themselves emerge from the incursion point. There was no Iron Man with them, but that could just be because there was no way the Illuminati would allow him to go into battle with his armor.

Tony pushed the lie from his mind as he redoubled his efforts on the Bridge. He never had a chance before now, with the entirety of the Bridge and all the worlds and information it gathered at his metaphorical fingertips, to truly dive through the wealth stored here. It could be useful to log all this data. Maybe it could show Steve how many worlds had already been ravaged, open his eyes to the – Tony bit his lip. This was Steve. The more you told him his way was impossible, the more he would dig his heels in, eyes flashing with indignation.

It was probably most useful to first compile the information on every single incursion they've dealt with or been privy to witnessing since Steve had been forced off the Illuminati. Earth-23099, Earth-2319, Earth-TRN395...Extremis processed the incursion data seamlessly into code, and of course there were some similarities between the destruction of planets that were almost the same at their core, but what else he saw was unavoidable. Tony hadn't noticed it before (maybe no one had noticed it before across the multiverse), but with the newly reacquired Extremis it stared back to him, as glaringly loud as a spot of bright red on pure white. A frantic frenzy began to build up within him as he pulled up even more incursions, every known collision of Earths he and Extremis could find. Every single time, the same process at the very beginning and the very end, over and over and over again.

His blood ran cold.

“That's impossible...” But would the data lie to him? How could it? Tony licked his lips and tried again, something drumming painfully against the inside of his chest. 

If this was real, then – of course it was real.

“Oh god...” Tony whispered. His fingers were trembling. “Oh hell.” 

“Tony?” 

His entire body felt frozen, but he turned regardless, the bile in his throat seemingly ready to choke him.

“Tony? What are you doing here?” Reed asked again, eyes wide, but his stance was battle-ready. All of the other gathered Illuminati were the same. Stephen stepped forward.

“The translocator was implanted by me, Tony,” he said, something like bafflement there. “There's a magical energy signature in it too that can't be fooled by electronic tampering.” Stephen looked regretful as he waved a hand around. Then Tony was suspended in midair, wrists and ankles cuffed by the magical binds. The first thought he had was that it was good, because he didn't think he could have remained standing for much longer.

Namor sneered at him as he walked up to him, peering into his face. “Looks to me like there's a traitor in our midst. Do you have something you want to explain to us, Stark?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, once again, to laireshi for the beta and to Sineala for cheerleading!

The words, when they came, were jumbled, running over each other in a desperate attempt at communication, conveying nothing but the choking horror welling up in him. “The Great Destroyer, Rabum Alal, the wheel, whatever it is, they're real, it's real, the code, it's there, it was all programmed in, all of it, it's all _fucking there.”_

The silence in the room turned deafening.

“What are you _doing!?_ ” Tony pleaded, voice cracking as he tugged as his restraints futilely. “Why are you just standing there?” Didn't they get it? There was someone, some _thing_ on the other side of the incursions staring straight back at them. An uncontrollable shudder ran down Tony's spine, his mind blanked at the reality of it.

The other members stirred, glancing at each other. Finally, Reed sighed – a quick, sharp huff – and stepped forward.

“Tony, you're telling us this like we're not already aware of it,” Reed said slowly, his expression wary. “These incursions are not natural; we've known about this from day one. The logical conclusion is that, yes, there is a force at work intent on bringing about the destruction of the known multiverse. The motivation behind their actions, however, is not something we can hope to understand.” He looked to the others, seemingly for some sort of reassurance, before turning back to Tony.

“What takes precedence is the fact that there is an incursion due in approximately seven hours,” Hank cut in, wringing his hands. “In a hostage situation, we negotiate with the hostage-takers to ensure the safety of the innocent. The reasons for why someone would choose such a course of action is...incidental compared to what must be done to save lives.”

Tony grit his teeth hard, wanting something, _anything_ to crack under this pressure. “That analogy doesn't apply here and you know that, Beast. This isn't an isolated incident. We're talking about taking out the ringleader of the operation, here, not about any lackies!”

“It's regrettable, then, that these 'lackies' threaten the lives of my people,” T'Challa's voice was ice. “Enough. Do not waste our time, Stark, when you have used subterfuge against us in an attempt to compromise our systems. Not when you have committed such crimes _here,_ in the city my ancestors placed under my jurisdiction.”

“Crimes,” Namor barked with laughter. “I can't tell if the moral relativism amuses or sickens me.” His grin widened, teeth glinting. “Oh, but we remember the last time one of our members disagreed with us, don't we?”

“Wait.” Bruce stepped forward, frowning. “I know I wasn't here the last time, but from where I'm standing, this is nothing alike.” He looked between the other Illuminati in challenge. “Tony contributed to the designs of the anti-matter bombs, the Dyson sphere, all of the weapons at our disposal. He's not like Steve. He's not someone you just cut loose.” Tony couldn't help snorting, his eyes suddenly stinging. Any group to which Steve Rogers was considered disposable could never have been in the right. And here he thought he'd come to terms with that long ago.

Black Bolt jerked his head. Reed nodded.

“We don't have the time to deal with this right now,” Reed urged. “If Tony really has found something new pertaining to the origin of the incursions, then it's worth looking into. He didn't come here with his armor – ” he shot a look at Tony, as suspicious an expression as Reed could muster, so it mostly just looked thoughtful – “so he can't be a threat to us on his own.”

Namor scowled. T'Challa crossed his arms. Stephen shook his head, whipping around with a large sweep of his cape and storming out of the room without a word.

“It appears there is something we need to inquire after with Stephen, as well,” Hank mumbled, gaze lingering on the doorway.

“Well, that's no fun,” Maximus said, hip-bumping Black Bolt. “I wanted to see how the most powerful men on Earth dealt with traitors in their midst.”

Like his words were a cue, the restraints holding Tony up vanished, dropping him roughly to the floor. His temporary freedom from the ache of being suspended did little good, Hank swiftly grabbing him in what felt like a choke hold, for all that Tony's breathing cut short. Tony could barely make out the Illuminati, none of them meeting his own gaze, before a pressure caught his neck in a vice and his vision went black.

* * *

Tony slumped down, back pressed against the side of the cage, staring listlessly at the cold, barren room outside it. The containment chamber was far less susceptible than Avengers Tower was to tampering from Extremis, on virtue of the design for these cages not being entirely contributed by Tony himself, and the fact that every time he tried to access Extremis, blinding pain ravaged him. Not that Tony was surprised at being searched and presumably scanned by the Illuminati as a safety precaution. Reed had read over Extremis's code before. He would have been able to figure it out at first glance, which mean he also would have been able to disable it.

Tony caught his head in his hands, squeezing at his temples. He should have done the same with the incursion data from the moment Reed reactivated the Bridge. They had all poured over the images, the videos, the code, desperate to find a pattern. An effective measure to predict an incursion, maybe, and in their wildest fantasies, perhaps some sign of premeditation that would finally lead them to some answers. And now that Tony saw it, it might do no good at all, at least not for the Earth on the other side of the current incursion.

Extremis was one-of-a-kind programming feat, and there was no embellishing of the truth in that statement. Just one of its components proving its ingenuity was that it used the human body, _life,_ simultaneously one of the most stable and fluctuating phenomena in the known universe, as a hardware base to generate true random numbers. It meant that Maya's algorithm that Tony had only slightly modified was, by almost all accounts, nigh unassailable. By mere human eyes, at least. But if analyzed through a program that used almost the exact same basis to remain undetectable, the reality became crystal-clear.

What Tony's own version of Extremis had shown him was this: the incursions were programmed to occur. No accidents, only ticking time bombs without a timer set. Depending on an exact circumstance, two universes could crash into each other, but if those circumstances differed by even one iota, then the execution of the code was left incomplete, the incursion avoided. There was no way to predict them any sooner than the exact moment the variables aligned and triggered their onset. In a twisted sense, the clarity of it was beautiful.

The more Tony thought on it, the tighter he squeezed his head. He knew the method, and that was the first step to understanding and stopping this.

That had always been the end-goal, to put an end to the incursions at their source. But having the actual means to do so – it had always seemed like a vague dream. One person, having the ability to turn the tide of an entire multiverse. Even if they had the will to, that kind of power felt like an aberration. But Tony couldn't let his emotions dictate where he had to go from here. If he was someone who could change these outcomes, that just meant that the person on the other end shouldn't be so different from him, should be someone he could understand.

But he couldn't. Why would someone want to go to such lengths? The code had struck him with its elegance, unseated some sense of admiration from him. How could anyone go to such lengths, time and effort and care, to achieve such an atrocity? What did a person like that possibly have to gain...? Did it even matter? But part of Tony knew, without a doubt, that it did. This wasn't blind, sadistic murder for the sake of it. Someone who was capable of thought understandable by humanity was responsible, so they must have a reason. But what sort of reason could explain this? The questions clawed at the inside of Tony's skull, jarring him like they struck bone.

Something rattled the cage, and Tony shot back to little avail, the wall of the chamber ungiving against his body. Bright light flooded his vision, forcing his to squeeze his eyes shut, pops of light still sparking behind his closed eyelids.

Moments later, he opened his eyes slowly, blinking away the temporary blindness, only to attempt to scramble away once he regained his bearings.

In the center of the chamber, someone stood, hand outstretched. The glow surrounding them meant Tony was unable to make out any of their features other than the general outline of their body – tall, well-built. They made no move toward Tony. In fact, they only seemed interested in something floating above their hand, which, Tony realized faintly, was the light source, quickly fading away. They shifted, and Tony could finally discern its shape. His stomach dropped out of his body.

Cracked, with bits and pieces missing, but still unmistakably the Time Gem was suspended there in mid-air.

The person turned their body toward Tony, took a few steps toward him. Tony finally tore his eyes away from the Time Gem, snapping them up to meet the person's gaze, only to jump. His heart was hammering a hundred beats per second, the pounding roaring in his ears.

Only because it was him, or someone with his face, did Tony not act on his instinct to try to escape, fruitless as the attempt would have been in their enclosed space.

“Come with me,” Steve said, his voice distant. He held out a hand, the one without the Time Gem floating above it.

Tony blinked at him, his hand reaching out of its own accord. Steve's hand caught his, pulling him up to stand beside him. Tony only had a few seconds to stare at Steve before Steve's fingers tightened around his.

The world around them jerked sharply, blinking them away.

* * *

When he resurfaced from the – Tony could only think of it blankly as a _time vortex,_ a vast mass of white that was endless and restrictive at the same time, he could only blink in confusion at where he had landed.

They were in some sort of garden. A massive tree, easily hundreds of years old, towered over them, and the plants around them were a rainbow of colors. It reminded Tony of when the Gardeners had first descended upon Mars.

And that memory reminded Tony of who had come with him. He whirled around. Sure enough, Steve stood beside him, and there was no Time Gem in sight.

Now that he could get a closer look at him, Tony was taken aback. Steve's uniform was different, slightly less bulky, and, Tony thought with some appreciation, more form-fitting. With a pang of nostalgia, Tony noted the wings on his cowl remained present, rather than simply alluded to via stenciled markings. But the superficial differences between ended with the uniform. Steve's eyes were hooded, his lips a thin line, and there was a listlessness in his eyes that made something catch in Tony's throat.

Steve...Steve looked utterly _defeated,_ sullen and exhausted. Not like he'd fought through a war, but like he'd accepted that there no longer came a life afterward. Tony, unable to help it, took a few steps toward him, his fingers curling into a fist to prevent them from reaching out for Steve.

“You're... not Ste – _my_ Steve,” Tony amended, before flinching at the possessive.

Steve – Rogers? – Other-Steve gave him a long, impassive stare, one that made Tony feel stripped bare, searched and scrutinized. What other-Steve saw must not have been what he was looking for, his eyes quickly darting away, posture closing off.

“You're not my Tony,” he said quietly, and Tony suddenly felt the irrational urge to apologize for the fact.

Tony couldn't take his eyes off of other-Steve as he surveyed their surroundings intently, brows furrowed. It set Tony on edge, but probably not as much as he should have been, effectively having being freed by someone who was, by all rights, a stranger, and moreover, a stranger in possession of a Time Gem. Hell, Infinity Gems only worked in their origin universe, so it was _their_ lost, now found, Time Gem, and nearly broken to boot. But this person was still a Steve, and if Tony couldn't trust him, then there might as well be no point in trying at all.

“You said to come with you,” Tony offered with some hesitation. “Do you know where we are?”

“Not where I assumed we'd go,” other-Steve said gruffly as he began to walk ahead. Tony hurried to match his long, purposeful strides. It was something he usually didn't have to do, what with their heights already being so similar.

“The gem brought us here for a reason,” other-Steve said distractedly.

“Right.” Of course it did, because physical manifestations of abstract cosmic concepts didn't just descend upon and strand mere mortal humans for no good reason. “Speaking of that, where do you suppose it ended up? Maybe it wants us to find it?” Or find _something_ important here, in this brightly colored, bizarro children's fairy tale pastiche.

Other-Steve nodded, like he had reached a similar conclusion.

Tony still had a hundred other questions to ask. _How did you get the Gem?_ _Why did you have it?_ _Why did it look like that? Who are you?_

Before he could voice even the most innocuous of the questions, a searing sensation jolted across his vision. Tony couldn't stop a hiss of pain from escaping him as he scrambled to hold his head, reorient himself from the white-hot flashes of pain.

“Tony!” A hand gripped his shoulder. “What is it? Are you hurt!?” Other-Steve's voice was laden with worry. All Tony could think of was how if he'd known what Tony had done, he wouldn't sound like that. Maybe his other self hadn't, Tony wished with a sudden, fruitless desperation. The least this Steve, who looked so broken, deserved was a Tony who did right by him. Other-Steve peered at Tony, the grip on his shoulder tightening almost painfully, eyes almost wild. It looked like Tony wasn't the only one having trouble separating his own memories from the actual person standing beside him.

“I'm – ” Tony laughed weakly. The image that had crossed through his vision was unmistakable. Ones and zeros littered the vision, but Tony remembered too well the image behind those numbers, one of a bruised and battered Steve, uniform torn to shreds, from the other side of a jail cell and glaring at Tony with nothing but pure unbridled hatred.

 _All that_ , his mind offered, _but he kissed you anyway._ Tony shrugged off other-Steve's hand. Now wasn't the time to dwell on that, not while he stood next to an alternate universe version of the man he loved and betrayed in every sense of the word.

First things first. He'd been too caught up in other thoughts. It wasn't something he could afford to do, he thought with a flash of irritation. This shouldn't be the type of thing where he had to be reminded through the reality of pain. If Extremis was disabled, then the memories from the Watcher... Tony wanted to laugh again, thinking about it. He had come all the way back to the beginning – it seemed an eternity ago, when his short-circuiting brain was the most of his worries.

“It's not a priority.” Tony waved a hand around. “Well, not unless you can scrounge up computer parts from Wonderland here. A surgical license would be pretty helpful too, now that I think about it.”

Other-Steve's lips tightened, and how was it that Tony could hear the _you being hurt_ _ **is**_ _a priority_ without him saying it?

“You'd be surprised what you could find to work with here, actually. Especially when you're the type of guy who could fashion a rudimentary UI out of a box of knick-knacks and some string.”

Tony jumped as other-Steve whipped around to face the source of the voice. It took Tony a second longer to turn, body tensing.

Instead of Ex Nihilo or Abyss or an Aleph, in front of the massive tree stood someone unmistakably human, and didn't it speak entirely too much of the situation that that was what seemed out of place?

“Who are you?” Other-Steve stepped to the side, shielding Tony, and Tony was about to pipe up that he was fine before stopping himself. Extremis was down. Tony didn't have his armor. Without anything resembling technology around, he was dead weight in a unknown location. Why had other-Steve even asked him to come with him in the first place?

“I must say, I was expecting to welcome a different set of visitors.” The man was tall and bearded, long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. That wasn't really what warranted Tony's attention though, not next to the giant blue reactor core shining in his chest. The man smiled, but his actions were more telling of his intentions as he shifted into a more defensive stance. “But hello regardless, Iron Man and...Cap?”

Other-Steve stiffened. “Who else would I be?”

The man shrugged, relaxing, smile coming easier now. “I've learned you can never make assumptions, when it comes to alternate universes.”

So, he had reached the same conclusion Tony had about the origin of this Steve.

“You haven't answered the question,” other-Steve challenged.

The man closed his eyes, nodding. “Right to the point. Some things will never change.” He straightened, opening his eyes to glance between other-Steve and Tony. “At least, this isn't _our_ first time meeting, Tony Stark. My name is Franklin Richards, the son of Reed and Susan Richards.”

“That's impossible,” other-Steve snapped while Tony gaped. “We're easily a few hundred years in the future.”

“You knew, even back then, that I had powers unlike anything anyone's seen before,” Franklin said, smile turning wry. “Turns out one of them meant living forever. And your estimate is a bit off. We're actually five thousand and forty five years into the future.” He paused for a moment, as if to let the fact sink in.

“And you just happened to be here at the exact moment we arrived?” Other-Steve demanded.

“I knew you were coming, I just expected a...different you.” Franklin shrugged, but he couldn't hide a flash of vexation from crossing his face. “Either the initial information I received was flawed, which I highly doubt, or something has diverged from expected parameters within a frighteningly short time period. Say, the past few weeks or so on Earth-616?”

Other-Steve turned his face to look at Tony out of the corner of his eye. Tony shrugged, unable to answer the unspoken question. How was he supposed to know when anything had diverged from Franklin's so-called information? He had only his own set of memories to rely on.

“If we're going to be sharing information like that, we have to know if we can trust you,” Tony offered. “Or if you're really even who you say you are.”

Franklin pursed his lips, nodding slowly. “Fair enough. Tony, the reason I have this – ” he tapped on his chest – “is thanks to your initial repulsor technology. Obviously not the exact same as you have now – we _are_ five thousand years into the future, after all. No, it developed out of something you told Val and me, just the two of us, after you taught a class at the Future Foundation once. You told us that, theoretically, this technology would be relevant forever, as long as we figured out how to cycle a twin paradox indefinitely within an infinitesimally minute space. And you charged us with the task of doing so, because – ”

“I wanted you to carry on my legacy and not your father's.” Tony chuckled lowly. “I remember that, but not what Reed said to me that day to set me off.”

“Well, you were right,” Franklin said, spreading his arms out.

“That's just how it is, that I only get validation thousands of years after my natural lifespan.” Tony jerked his head at other-Steve. “He's who he says he is.”

Other-Steve shot him a look, but straightened regardless.

“I'm sure your parents raised you right – the type of person who wants to save the Earth from impending doom.” Tony took a step forward. “Cap here says this isn't the place we wanted to end up, and you're saying we're not the people you expected to show. Got any reason as to why?”

A grunt answered his question. Other-Steve was shaking his head, digging his foot into the ground. “Something went wrong, and we need to fix it.”He grit his teeth. “There isn't the time for planning or strategizing.”

Tony realized he was gaping and couldn't bring himself to care. Steve, the master strategist, was telling them to throw out everything that went against his tactical mind?

Franklin looked disturbed, too. “Cap, then the first thing we all need to know is what you mean by something going wrong. Do you have an explanation for why you've turned up here instead of the group that was supposed to?”

“How should I know?” The temper on other-Steve was flaring up, Tony could see by how his shoulders tensed, yet he couldn't understand what had made him so desperate. “I need to know,” other-Steve said, “if what I need to happen will happen. If it doesn't, then it doesn't matter why we're here, not when there was no point in me doing any of this in the first place.”

Franklin's eyes took on a sharp glint. “What do you need to happen, then?”

“The Time Gem needs to come back, _here._ It's the only way to the axis point.”

“Axis point?” Tony searched for answers in other-Steve and Franklin's faces, but other-Steve was intent on Franklin, who was deep in thought.

“You said the Time Gem.” Franklin finally said, pursing his lips. A disbelieving smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and he shook his head. “That's actually not a bad plan. You're right – it's the only certain way to reach the axis point.”

“ _Will_ it come back?” Other-Steve shot off. “If it won't, if it's gone on without us in tow, then it was all for naught.”

Franklin, generally calm and placid up until now, startled a bit. He narrowed his eyes, his eyes flashing as if he'd just been insulted. “Without you? That's usually the procedure, isn't it? The pieces of Infinity don't let anyone hitch a ride.” He closed his eyes to take a breath. “It's never been achieved before, which is why so many universes have sent off teams of Avengers to search for the axis point, instead.”

“This wasn't a normal Infinity Gem,” other-Steve retorted, which brought to mind the nearly shattered form of the Time Gem. _Their_ Time Gem, how the hell did it come to look like that? A self-deprecating smile slowly slid over other-Steve's face. “Ever seen what an Infinity Gem looks like when it gets interrupted in the middle of its journey?”

Franklin studied him closely. “You really _are_ from an alternate universe. But I've never heard of any universe sending their Captain America on what has essentially become a fruitless suicide mission. If you've been traveling within the Superflow, then the most likely explanation is that you must be...the sole survivor?” Franklin began to gesticulate, head tilted and voice speeding up, and Tony was suddenly struck with the similarity between father and son. “But your original universe must have still been roughly in tune with 616, and you know more than we do, and we're five thousand years past the fact. That sort of information belies some untapped, unheard of reservoir of knowledge. Just who have you been working with?”

Other-Steve stiffened, before scoffing quietly. “No one. I'm on my own.” He looked away, staring off into the distance. Tony's fingers twitched, the urge to reach out catching him, but he remained where he stood. Franklin cleared his throat as he adjusted the sleeve on his suit.

“Now that we've reached a lull in the proceedings, anyone want to catch me up? I'm not very fond of being behind the cur – agh!”

“Tony!”

Tony waved other-Steve away, hand pressed tight against his face, eyes squeezed shut. The pain flashed white-hot behind his eyelids. For the first time, Tony couldn't even concentrate on the memory it showed him, only able to bite his lip to ground himself.

When it passed, Tony was faintly aware that he was trembling. His breaths came out in harsh pants.

He blinked blearily, trying to sink down but stopped by the solid warmth beside him. Other-Steve shifted, trying to accommodate Tony's weight more comfortably, and yeah, that was enough to snap Tony from his stupor. He tried to pull away, only to be caught by other-Steve's gaze.

“You said it wasn't a priority,” other-Steve said quietly. Accusingly.

“I swear they weren't that bad before.” Perhaps mentioning that he had been able to pilot the armor while having the pain attacks wouldn't be helpful here, considering how other-Steve looked about ready to shake him.

“Avengers have always needed to weather pain, but two of those in the past five minutes implies something more's at work.” Franklin set his hand on Tony's shoulder. “If we could find the cause – ”

“No, no,” Tony shrugged his hand off, pulling away from other-Steve and taking a moment to straight out his shirt. “I know why it's happening.” But if they _were_ five thousand years in the future...

“What do you know about Extremis?” Tony asked.

Franklin's eyes widened a little and he let out a slow breath. “Well, that's a word I haven't heard in a long, long time.”

“What about Extremis?” Suddenly, it felt like Tony's arm was in a vice. Other-Steve's fingers tightened around his upper arm, hand trembling a bit.

“Cap?” Tony squinted up at him. Other-Steve's eyes were hooded, and he couldn't make out his expression.

“What about Extremis?” Other-Steve repeated, the words harsh. “What did you _do,_ To – Iron Man?” It was the exact same words his own Steve had used but this wasn't the same. There was something more behind other-Steve's question than anger and frustration, something almost unhinged. Fearful.

“Well,” Tony said, flexing his arm until other-Steve's grip loosened, “starting from about...five thousand years and a few hours ago, I re-injected myself with it.”

“ _Re-_ injected it?” The outrage in other-Steve's eyes flashed. “And now you're having convulsions, and you said it _wasn't a priority!”_

Tony blinked at him, the pieces clicking into place. “Cap.” Tony pitched his voice low. “I'm fine. Honest. I don't know how advanced Extremis was in your universe, but the one I took – ” well, the one he took _this_ time, at least – “won't kill me. The convulsions are more magic's fault than anything else. They're not indicative of anything other than a really bad headache. Besides, Extremis is gone anyway. Got taken offline by Reed just before you came for me.”

It took a long moment, until other-Steve closed his eyes, took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, he shook his head slowly as he stepped back.

Someone cleared their throat. When he caught Tony's eye, Franklin peered curiously at him. “If it happened just before you came...I think I might have an idea why the gem brought you here instead of straight to them.”

“Them?” Tony echoed. Franklin's gaze flicked to other-Steve, who nodded shortly.

“There have been many names attributed to them. You might call them Rabum Alal,” Franklin said. “The Great Destroyer. The wheel.” He shrugged, a wry smile tugging at his lips. “It all boils down to the same person.”

“The Gr – ” Tony stepped back. His head was spinning, but it wasn't related to Extremis or the Watcher or anything so trivial.

Rabum Alal was real. He'd figured as much, hadn't he? He'd said it too, tried to convince the rest of the Illuminati of the reality of it. Rabum Alal was real, and he had been inches away from meeting them, according to other-Steve.

“How – why?” Tony's voice shook.

Other-Steve's gaze snapped to his. “To stop them,” he said flatly.

“It's the perfect storm of variables,” Franklin muttered, impressed. “The broken Time Gem, someone with Extremis, and...you.” He looked at other-Steve. “I still don't know where you're from, but this is – ”

“Our chance to put an end to this,” other-Steve said. “If the Time Gem sent us here, then you must have something to aid us with Extremis.”

“Now that, Cap,” Franklin smiled, holding his hand out in front of him, “is a vast understatement.” A blue translucent sphere popped out of his palm. Like a flower blossoming, it split open, its metaphorical petals sending up dull beams of light.

“You carry Extremis around in your pocket?” Tony couldn't look away from the display unfolding before him.

Franklin grinned. “Extremis? This little thing has more data in it than all of Stark Resilient's properties put together a hundred thousand times over. I did say we're five thousand years in the future, right?”

Something welled up in Tony's throat, letting him forget all else at the moment. The emotion was as cutting and fond as nostalgia, even though what he saw in front of him was brought about by the distant wonders of the future.

“That's...wow.”

A soft chuckle met his words, and Other-Steve turned abruptly away when Tony looked up at him in response. Franklin clucked his tongue and stepped forward, the light in his palm growing brighter as he edged toward Tony.

“You were right about it being taken offline – looks like Dad didn't do anything besides shut it off. It's not irreversible. The safest option for you, but potentially the most dangerous for him.” Franklin smiled gently, like he wasn't really seeing Tony at the moment. “He was always sentimental.”

“He was on a tight schedule,” Tony replied shortly, and Franklin's smile dimmed. Well, that was the short of it, however Franklin treasured his family memories. The Illuminati had agreed, that the cause was greater than anything else. There was no room for anything else. Tony may have broken that promise, but, well, that was Tony Stark for you.

“This means that we don't need any bodily modifications,” Franklin said. “If it's just a matter of starting it up again – ”

Just like that, between one blink and the next, Tony's world changed. The garden, which had seemed so tranquil and serene, burst into life before him, the feeds from the technology overwhelming him, bizarrely foreign and achingly familiar at the same time.

“Wow. I can barely understand this,” Tony said, almost giddy at the rush.

“Five thousand years,” Franklin reminded again.

“So, that's that?”

Tony jerked out of the stupor, interrupted by the words. He looked at other-Steve, face set in a hard expression, and felt the cold creeping back into his limbs. The business of the network of technology he'd find himself in the middle of was overtaken, the connections frozen over by a slow horror.

“That's that,” he heard himself saying.

Other-Steve closed his eyes, jerked his head in a nod.

“If I've worked this out, the Time Gem should be back any moment,” Franklin said. “You have a plan for dealing with this?”

“The reason they haven't been stopped yet is because they've been impossible to reach.” Other-Steve shrugged. “They're only one person, in the end. Franklin, I thank you for your time, but I need to talk with Iron Man one-on-one here.”

Franklin nodded. “I can't offer anything else to you. There's only so much the most powerful mutant can do.” He set his hands on each of their shoulders. “Good luck, then. If there's any two people who can work together to solve this, it's you. And, so I don't accidentally accompany you two, I'll be off.”

“Thank you,” other-Steve said, as Tony agreed blankly, his body still numb. They watched as Franklin walked away. When his figure disappeared behind the back of the tree, no one emerged from the other side. Tony circled around, just to check, but he was gone.

“Hey, so we're really – ” Tony said, turning around, until a bright orange glow erupted between them. “...And there's our ride.”

“I wish I had more time to explain.” Other-Steve said, before laughing to himself. “What am I saying? I wish I could have brought myself to explain.” He reached out for the Time Gem before Tony could ask what he meant. What was something that could stop Steve Rogers from doing what needed to be done?

There was a booming cracking noise. Tony shouted, covering his ears as every electronic in the vicinity wailed, the shrieking shaking him to the core. When it subsided, his ears were still ringing.

“Damn it! ” Other-Steve was on his knees, cradling his wrist with his other hand.

“Steve, are you okay!?”

“Don't!” Other-Steve snapped as Tony walked toward him. “Wait, grab it!”

Tony's hand shot out in response to the command, closing firmly around the Time Gem. The warmth of the gem flooded him, every one of his nerves singing with the sensation. He opened and closed his mouth uselessly.

“It still works,” Other-Steve muttered. “Thank God. But it – ”

“Cap, what's going on?”

“It rejected me.” Other-Steve shook his head. “I must have – I've been in this universe for too long. It should have worked out, if we hadn't ended up here. It was supposed to.” There was an almost hysterical edge to his voice.

“Cap. Steve!” Tony edged toward him, Time Gem still in his grasp. “Talk to me!”

“For someone who's always had too much, it looks like this is it.” Other-Steve was staring at his hands, avoiding Tony's eyes.

“Steve, you're always so damn straightforward, stop dancing around the question!”

“I'm out of time.”

Like an acknowledgment, the Time Gem pulsed in response. “What do you mean you're – ”

“I wasn't meant to be here, anyway. I wasn't meant to be anywhere.” Other-Steve's voice wavered. “I can't come with you.”

Tony gaped at him. “You're joking with me, right?” When Other-Steve didn't answer, he raised his voice. “Right? You just told me the person responsible for the destruction of the entire fucking multiverse is on the other side of this Time Gem, and you're telling me to _go and stop them on my own?” I don't even know who they are. I don't even know what I can do._

“I wish it didn't have to be you. No one deserves it, but especially not you. If I could switch our places... I'm sorry.” Other-Steve said, and Tony realized with a start that his body had started to turn translucent. “But you would do it anyway, right? You could do it anyway. You're Tony Stark.”

And just like that, at the same moment the Time Gem pulsed again, tugging some part of Tony's mind away, other-Steve got up, stumbling toward Tony, catching Tony's face between his fingers. At least, Tony could _see_ his hands there, but he could no longer feel them, and other-Steve was disappearing, right in front of his eyes.

“Steve,” he whispered.

“Hey.” Other-Steve's eyes were soft and fond, and when was the last time Steve had looked at him like that?

“Hey, Tony,” other-Steve said, words choked out. His eyes were glassy, and Tony knew, with absolute certainty, he wasn't the Tony being spoken to anymore. “I trust you. Always.”

He wasn't his Steve, and Tony wasn't his Tony, but the conviction in any Steve Rogers's voice could instill hope in the most wretched of beings. Could convince Tony, any Tony, that he was capable of righting all of his wrongs.

With a sharp tug, the Time Gem pulled Tony away.

* * *

Tony crashed to the floor with a sharp cry.

“Steve!” Tony shouted, scrambling to get upright. As he struggled for balance in getting to his feet, he loosened his grip. Like it had been waiting for the moment, the Time Gem jerked, hard, and Tony tightened his grip. He closed another fist over his hand, to make sure the gem stayed in place, before looking up.

“Holy – ” The vertigo from the journey, the worry over Steve, everything was blanked out for a moment by what was in the room with him.

Red, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow. Hundreds, thousands, floating so packed together, seemingly every single inch of space in the gigantic room taken up by them. The shapes they came in, spheres and cylinders and pieces of broken glass and rectangles, didn't matter.

As far as the eye could see, Infinity Gems populated the room, and Tony had never felt so small in his life. He took a step forward and nearly tipped over as the Time Gem shot out of his hand, like it had been ripped away. It flew several feet away to join the rest of the Infinity Gems that floated above a workstation, only to be caught by the person sitting there, their back turned to Tony.

Tony's throat went dry. His body froze, numb all over. He didn't know whether he wanted to scream, or run, or hide. All he could do was stand, paralyzed, as every instinct he had ever known cried out at him to _move_.

The man swiveled around, rose from his chair, and Tony found himself face-to-face with Rabum Alal.

“What's this? Looks like I have a visitor.”

The same blue eyes Tony had seen every day in the mirror met his own, flashing with wry amusement as the other Tony smirked at him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to laireshi for the beta, as always. Also, a shout out to Sineala for all her cheerleading. Thank you!

_No._

Tony stepped back, trembling, not even knowing how he could move when his limbs felt locked in ice. The word flashed at the edges of his sight again and again, a bright, bold red error message.

“No?” other-him said, and Tony realized he'd spoken aloud. “That makes it sound like you're not happy to see me.” He grinned, teeth flashing white, and something in Tony's gut twisted. 

There were infinite hims. He'd met some of them, including many he hadn't wanted to. A few had been outright deranged villains. But this was –

The other him's eyes were fixed on his, glinting bright. A sociopath? But there had been effort exerted here, in that beautiful code and the thousands of Infinity Gems circling around them. There was effort, and investment, and a fierce, wild desperation that Tony recognized. He had seen it in himself, when faced with the end of the universe.

And then he knew, without a doubt, the truth, and the reality of it threatened to crush him. There was nothing wrong with this other him. It was like looking in a mirror, the movements just a second behind, the dissonance more striking than the differences.

_Everything dies, and it's my fault._

Tony shook his head. “No,” he said again, and the word flooded his vision. “That's impossible.” He wanted to save the Earth. It wasn't true – none of this could be true, he lied.

Other-him lifted his chin, defiant, eyes glittering now. “I thought that myself, about many things. But here we are, now.” He spread his arms, sweeping over the room. The action rang too familiar, and Tony was struck with the realization that, under this veneer of panache, other-him was on the defensive. He wondered if it was always so obvious, or if the recognition was the gift of a fellow talented liar.

If Tony had made other-him act like this, then it meant he scared other-him too.

He didn't know what that was supposed to mean.

A footstep echoed through the room, the Infinity Gems shivering in the wake of their master.

“I heard they have names for me, now,” other-him said, taking another step. “Rabum Alal, the Great Destroyer. Little did they know that the person responsible for the death of the multiverse was standing right by their side the entire time.”

That was enough to spur Tony. He scoffed, loud and disbelieving, shaking his head at the audacity. “You're trying to drag me down with you? How much of a coward do you have to be?” This man could end lives on an incomprehensible scale, but couldn't even claim full responsibility for the fact. He needed to share the unspeakable burden, and the sheer, blinding disgust Tony felt at that shocked himself.

Other-him stopped in his tracks. The gaping silence threatened to swallow Tony up. Other-him covered his face with a hand, shoulders shaking, and it took several moments of stunned shock for Tony to really hear the laughter seizing other-him. It came in waves, building in volume, crescendoing into hysteria. It washed over Tony like ice spilling into his blood.

When the sound snapped shut other-him's shoulders were shaking, but his voice came out as calm and cold as before. “And what would people say to you? You're building weapons that could destroy an Earth under a cloak of lies and secrecy. Do you try to explain to them why it's come to this? This, that's not right, that can't be right, but at least it isn't wrong, it's better than the worst that can happen? Or have you given up? Do you not care, and allow them to call you a monster?”

Well, they wouldn't be wrong.

“You know nothing,” Other-him finally said, his eyes flashing with some indescribable emotion. “Would you judge me like that?”

With that, other him had given himself away. He did care. He cared about what Tony thought about him, and when did any Tony Stark do that anymore?

But Tony knew the answer to that as well. He cared when he'd done something even he couldn't justify. And the reason for that, why he couldn't forgive himself, was so blindingly obvious that the selfishness made him start seeing red. His nails dug painfully into his palms.

“How many people died for this?” was all he could force out, the words choked through the bubbling rage. “What could you _possibly_ fucking tell me that changes that?”

Other-him reared up, glaring at him, meeting the challenge. “I can't make excuses. I refuse to make excuses for the past.” Something shifted in him, then, and the Infinity Gems in the room seemed to vibrate with their newfound energy. “But you know how it is, looking toward the future. You know how it is, our lives as Avengers. We die. We come back to life. Do we really remember the former? Doesn't coming back to life change that you died in the first place? If it's not permanent, then does it matter?”

The Infinity Gems floating over the table flew over to other-him, circling him, lighting up his face in a rainbow of colors. “All the lives lost in all the incursions. And all of those still alive who've had their lives destroyed anyway, faced with a decision with no right way out. I can save them all.”

Tony's throat went dry, his mind scrambling against the impossible words. “What do you mean, save them? You're the cause of the incursions in the first place, aren't you!?” he finally shouted, the echo of his own words against the room sending a chill through him. “If you hadn't started them, then no one would have died to begin with!”

The blow didn't faze other-him. “I am the cause of the incursions, yes. Or, rather, Earth-93606 is.” He tilted his head. “Our universe was on the brink of destruction. When we used our Infinity Bracelet, what do you think happened? What did we wish for?” He paused to shrug. “It's what anyone would, next to death.”

“ _We have to live._ And we did, but what do you think that meant?” He stopped again, a play at waiting for some foolish answer.

“The universe died. Earth survived.”

This time the silence was more pronounced. But it still wasn't enough for Tony to process it. Other-him shook his head and chuckled, low.

“We were something that existed that shouldn't have. If we had been wiped clean too, without a trace like the rest of our universe, it would have been fine. It was living that was the problem. The multiverse thought so, too, and at the cost of our survival, the connections between other universes were compromised. Incursions,” he ended flatly. 

“That's – ” Tony opened his mouth uselessly, before stepping forward, squaring his shoulders. “You could have – if you had known the cause, then it shouldn't have come to this!”

“You can be pragmatic, say you'll kill others to save the greater amount of people, if whoever is saved includes yourself. But first, look me in the eye. Do you really think I would hesitate to die if it meant people could be saved?” The answer was simple. _Of course not._ Tony Stark was always going to be Tony Stark, regardless of the universe. 

“But who else?” other-him demanded. “A five year old? A couple who just welcomed their first child into the world? Anyone, _everyone_ who never made that choice to be a soldier, or a hero, or someone who knew from the very beginning that their duty could lead to their own death. The reason we do this in the first place is to protect those people, isn't it? Would you ask us, everyone on my planet, to kill ourselves for the greater good? Is that your answer?” 

“Of course not.” Tony shook his head adamantly, while other-him narrowed his eyes at him. “But there has to be a way out. You couldn't just have given up!” 

“I didn't.” With that, the Infinity Gems in the room lit up all at once, and other-him's eyes were coated over with a black film. “This is my answer. This is my way out.” 

Tony could hear the gems too, the moment other-him activated his own Extremis. They overwhelmed him at once, his entire frame jarring with the force. He covered his ears, squeezing his eyes shut, as his mind threatened to collapse under its own weight.

“We were so focused on stopping the incursions,” other-him said, his voice distant. “The failure destroyed us, each and every time we weren't able to stop it. We weren't in any danger. We wouldn't actually die if we failed, so we probably weren't as desperate as human nature forces us to in that sort of scenario. But the hatred for our ineptitude was killing us anyway.”

“It became worse the longer time went on. The incursions were inevitable, so long as nothing changed about our Earth. Even though we would have done anything to stop them, short of the murder of billions of innocent people. Until one day, it came to me,” other-him swept out an arm, “that the sheer amount of power in an incursion was something we could use. Instead of thinking of an incursion as another loss, another reminder of our failures, why couldn't we harness their power?”

Other-him took a breath, staring at him in challenge. Tony didn't answer it. He'd realized, almost from the beginning, what this was.

_This idea has been running through my mind. It's overwhelming – all-consuming – and I can't shut it off._

This was the other man's confession, one that he could never receive absolution for. If Tony was the one who had to hear it – because who else could possibly listen? Who else could be burdened with knowing? – then so be it. At the very least, he would allow this other-him someone to listen. A meaningless gesture for someone who didn't deserve even that.

Other-him's eyes narrowed, but he continued without any other acknowledgment. “Our Infinity Bracelet saved our Earth from imminent destruction. Infinity Shards only work in the universe they originated in. That theory was one we never questioned.” He huffed. “But we knew that from the time when our universe still existed.”

“The truth is that Infinity Shards can't work in universes beside their own. But in a place that no longer has a universe...take a look around you.” Tony turned his head to follow other-him's gaze.

“In this place, we can use every single piece of Infinity that ever existed. The power of countless universes, in this one place. If one set of them was enough to save an Earth that shouldn't have survived....then how many, do you think, does it take to save a universe? How many do you think it takes to save not just one universe, but all of them?” 

“Enough of them, and I can birth our original universe back, entirely intact from the moment of its death. That stops the incursions. But that's not enough. Bringing about the salvation of our Earth, but at the price of how many universes? That couldn't be the answer I was searching for. It turns out, I was thinking too small. I just needed to think bigger.” Other-him smiled then, sending a chill down Tony's spine. “Enough of them, and I can birth every universe back, every single one that was destroyed, every single life that was lost. Everything lives.” 

“Everything – How many Infinity – ” The realization struck Tony like lightning. “You couldn't have gotten those on your own. You...you stole our Infinity Gems?” Tony remembered the red sky in the mountains, the bitter cold that vibrated with the power of their Infinity Gauntlet. The all-encompassing power that had cracked in two only mere moments after their success, giving way to a year of despair. The shouting, and fighting, and desperation, where it had all started. 

“You must realize this now, after they disappeared from right before your eyes. They're not infallible. They can fail, after enough repeated usage. If it were that easy – ” other-him scoffed, then shrugged. “Yes. I used Extremis to predict each incursion. It's not so hard when you're looking at it from the epicenter. And then, during an incursion, in the moment when the boundaries between universes were the most blurred, when teams of heroes would resort to the power of Infinity to save them – I used my own Infinity Bracelet to steal them away.” 

“You – ” Tony's mind shorted out. He remembered the room after the Infinity Gauntlet broke. The yelling, the accusations thrown about. Steve had been shaking, his grip on the table trembling. It hadn't been their fault, none of it. He had to watch as Steve collapsed to the floor, the colors swirling around his head wiping his memories away. And it was all because – 

Tony lunged, but before he could even leap, he was slammed back down, his back bouncing painfully on the floor. “Damn you! You did that to us!” he shouted, throat hoarse even though he had barely spoken. He scrambled up, his movement cut short in an instant. He tried to move, but he was frozen in place, no matter how much he tore at the restraints. “It was your fault! Why!? Why, damn you!? You shouldn't have!”

Other-him watched him. The black coat of Extremis regressed, leaving his eyes a cold blue in their wake. “I shouldn't have? Which part? Saving our Earth? Not blowing up our own Earth once we realized what that meant? Trying to find a way out? Not resigning myself to a lifetime of meaningless searching for another way, for some better, purer, more righteous answer when I realized what worked? Using other universe's Infinity Shards, even if they would have been rendered useless eventually? Wanting to save everyone, because it's impossible?

“What, then? What do I do now? It was hubris, all of it, and the payment for my sins is the death of the entire multiverse. Oh, damn right it's hubris, but I'll make it happen.” Tony let out a shout as the power of the Infinity Gems pressed down on him harder, his nerves crying out in agony. Other-him stared down at him. “I don't care what doing that means. You said, earlier, I was trying to drag you down with me. It's the exact opposite. I've done all of this. There's no salvation for that fact. So after this is all over, after everyone's resurrection and salvation, the only one left in hell will be me. I don't care. I'll do it to make the impossible real. I already have.”

The pressure of the Infinity Gems eased with those words, and Tony stumbled back into his feet. He closed his hands into fists, and opened them again. “You...you think you're right. It doesn't matter what happens along the way, but you think you're right, don't you?”

Other-him's eyes narrowed. “What else am I supposed to think?”

“You're not.” Tony was trembling, blinking hard. “Do you know what you did to us?” He remembered Steve, that look of utter betrayal and hurt, the barely restrained tears. “When you say you don't care, does it only become about how many people live, and how many people die, and where that leaves you? Is that all that matters, when it comes to living?” He remembered looking up at the other Earth in Latveria, the single click as T'Challa pulled the trigger of the World-Killer, the already red sky darkening with the stroke of death. “You have no idea. When people come back to life, their deaths don't go away. When something breaks, repairing it doesn't mean it'll ever be the same. Everything you've helped break” – _I was happy, and it was all a lie –_ “it won't come back. What about that? What we've done, what we've ruined, because for us, this was the end. Have you thought about that? You can't say that! You know exactly what you're doing, but you haven't even considered that!” His shouts shook his entire body, shook the entire room, Infinity Gems and all. “You can't hide from me! I'm you! I'm you, and I can tell you right now, you don't even know when you're saving people, or when you're destroying them!”

A bright white vision seared through his mind, and Tony screamed as it burned through him. When the light cleared, other-him's shoulders were heaving, his hand gripping his own head. The Infinity Gems around other-him flashed again, and they both cried out, the tumult of emotions too great, too unstable to be handling the power of an entire universe.

“Fine.” Other-him's voice shook as he brought his hand down, fingers trembling. He was breathing harshly. “Keep talking. Do it.”

Tony didn't reply, the words scrambled in his head, spinning around in their chaos.

Other-him shook his head. “Do it,” he said quietly. “Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me to stop. Have you thought about what that means?” His voice began to rise. “Do it! Tell me that all of those deaths up to now were meaningless! Tell me there was no point in any of this! Tell me not to save them! What does that make me!?” He was shouting now, voice edges from shattering, eyes and veins bulging, all else lost but rage and despair. “It doesn't change anything! I'm already one! You can do that, can't you!? Do it! Tell me I'm a monster! Do you think there's any punishment left for someone like me, whose downfall took thousands of universes with him? Anything that could possibly compare to what I've done!?” The Infinity Gems around him shot out faster than Tony could follow with his eye, striking against the wall with a loud crash.

“Do it! Tell me I'm wrong! Do you think I care!? I said I'd save everyone! I don't care about anything else! If I stop now, then I would have broken my promise! That's all that matters anymore!”

The room was spinning. Tony wavered, stumbled, before he found his footing again.

“A promise?” Tony echoed, finally, unable to answer the rest. Unable to tell the truth, even to the people who demanded so. Some things never changed. Tony shook his head, going over the words again. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. “You've gone this far, all of this, because no matter what else you've done, the line you can't cross is that you can't break a promise?”

The room exploded. Tony shouted as he slammed through the wall of Infinity Gems. The overload of information rushed into him all at once. It was too much, error message after error message flooding Extremis. He writhed, falling through layers of Infinity Gems until he crashed into the floor. His body was on fire, he couldn't think, he couldn't do anything but scream helplessly, each contact of gem against him a brand on his skin.

When it stopped, the gems flew away from him, pushed aside, opening up around him.

Other-him stepped into the entrance of the semicircle. His eyes were black again.

“Stop me, and you'll be a monster. Don't stop me, and you'll be a monster. There's no choice left for you. But you know that we can't live with ourselves knowing we haven't done anything. So whatever you tell me, it's not an answer that would have made a difference.” He stuck an arm out, and the Infinity Gauntlet formed around his hand. “Remember that when you're resurrected.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took so long because I fell in love with Rabum Alal!Tony and wrote [an entire sidestory about him](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4056811). I'd recommend reading it now - it'll probably make the next (final!) chapter more impactful.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to laireshi for the beta and Sineala for cheerleading!
> 
> This last chapter won't make much sense without having read the [sidestory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4056811) first, so I recommend reading that!

Tony flung an arm out, slamming it through the wall of Infinity Gems. They bowed, then broke under the force, like diamonds cutting his skin. Tony squeezed his eyes shut as he clutched at one and yanked it out.

His whole life was a tale of all the times and places he should have died, all except here. He couldn't die – not like this, not at this man's hand.

If nothing else, he'd told Steve he'd come back to him.

He gripped the gem, and the light that erupted forth was blinding. The Power Gem pulsed in time with one, two agonizing heartbeats, and Tony was only faintly aware he was screaming the whole while. His mind splintered and his body shattered into a thousand pieces, the vibrations that coursed through him powerful enough to level planets.

Other-him hadn't even flinched when he'd used his Infinity Gauntlet, and that thought forced Tony to open his eyes and swing his arm in a wide arc.

Other-him blinked in and out, the blast of light neatly avoided. The Space Gem in his gauntlet was flashing. His eyes remained affixed on Tony.

“I've never known myself to be the sort to panic,” he said. “You realize it just makes everything harder.”

“Well, I've never known myself to be the easy sort.” Tony put all his strength in his legs and jumped, aiming the blast of the Power Gem to propel him backwards. The Infinity Gems parted for him and closed as he shot by them, his arm shaking with the pressure.

Tony cut the gem off, slamming his feet hard on the floor and leaping a few aborted steps back to regain his balance. He gasped, attempting in vain to catch his breath.

Running away wouldn't do anything. Distance meant nothing to someone omniscient. Tony grit his teeth as ice washed over him. When was the last time he had been afraid in battle?

_You're thinking too hard, Stark._ He couldn't accept defeat by anyone, much less by himself.

It was times like these that he would have counted on the rest of the Avengers to have his back.

The Avengers. Tony opened his hand. The Power Gem lay there, held in his hand like it was one of his repulsors. That was it.

Tony clanged against every single Infinity Gem as he probed the room with Extremis, jarring his mind with each contact, but he pushed past them. He searched for a more familiar signature.

One crashed right into him, like a punch in the gut. The wrongness of it was cruel and overwhelming, incomprehensible and familiar, and Tony clapped his hands over his ears.

_Stop this. I don't want to fight you –_ other-him's voice echoed in his mind, and Tony yanked himself away, from the other Extremis, from the same energy signature that sent his own mind haywire, unable to comprehend why Tony's brain had suddenly split into two. 

He tried to breathe, his head spinning until it found comfort.

“Gotcha,” Tony rasped out, a triumphant grin starting to span his face. He reached out, grasped a purple Space Gem, and there it was, a brilliant bright red and gold.

Tony couldn't resist a choked-off giggle. Being surrounded by thousands of universes' worth of existential power, and this is what made him feel anything. He stuck his arms out as the platings clicked into place around him, and the faceplate snapped shut. He closed his eyes, letting it soak in. It wasn't exactly the same, but Extremis recognized it anyway, and most importantly, it recognized him.

He had no doubt that Tony Stark could bring ruin to himself, but could he do to the same to Iron Man?

Tony's eyes shot open and he clenched his fists. He put thrust in the repulsors, zipping across the room. His memories of Extremis had been tainted too much for him to be fond of what it allowed him to do, so much so he'd forgotten things he did like, things like this, his armor moving seamlessly, pushed only by his thoughts.

It was almost enough to make him feel invincible. If only he hadn't been facing a destroyer of worlds with nothing but that ill-placed bravado to back him up.

“You've been neglecting your baby,” Tony chided as he floated down, retracting his faceplate. “When's the last time you took her for a ride?”

Other-him wasn't fazed. If someone had hijacked Tony's armor and flaunted it, he would have been indignant at the very least. “Do you really think stealing my armor will do anything?” Other-him's jaw tightened. Right, Tony thought with some triumph; he was just, as expected, a very good actor.

“You should know that this is where I feel the safest. Human psychology, you know,” Tony scoffed, “or do you not remember how that goes?”

That got him a raised chin. “Feeling safe doesn't change anything, not if you get in my way.” Other-him sighed. “We don't have to do this. If you just surrender – ”

“I could say the same to you. Believe me, I'm well-acquainted both with threats and with getting my own way.”

“Do you really know what that means?” Other-him's eyes flashed. “I thought I knew once how far I could go, and it's nothing but a drop in the bucket to who I am now.”

Tony couldn't resist a harsh laugh. “You don't know what I've done. You've told me what you've done, and I couldn't even imagine anything like it. Don't you think the same goes for you? I'm far from innocent, and I'm not going to pretend I'm anything but that.”

Other-him leveled him with an even gaze. “Were you right?” he asked abruptly, eyes glittering. “The things you did, did you do them because you wanted to save people?”

Other-him couldn't see anything but his face, but Tony still felt the stretch in his throat as he gulped. “Yes. That part's never changed. I'll always do the right thing.” His chest felt like it was constricting. “But there's more to it than being right.”

“And you're really me?” Other-him shook his head. “I can't believe it. What can possibly be 'more'?”

The shield, splattered in blood, flashed before Tony's eyes, in devastating clarity thanks to Extremis.

“It depends on who you want to save, I suppose,” Tony said. “It depends on who disagrees, and who stands in my path, and who refuses to budge.”

“That's your excuse?” Other-him glared at him. “I expected better. Why would you let an argument compromise what you believe?”

“It wasn't an argument. It was the consequences of that argument.” Tony's voice shook. “You said you'll take the downfall for this at the end. You'll welcome it, because you're the monster who did the unimaginable, and the villain always gets punished. That's how it goes, right, in all the stories? The fairy tales? The heroes win, and have their happily ever after.” His voice began to rise. “But what happens when they don't? What happens when you can never stop doing the unforgivable? Can you even imagine an ending like that, where you acted only because you _knew_ you were right and then everything turns out wrong!? What happens when you get what you wanted, but you can't be damned for it? When the person who takes the fall, whose blood is on your hands, is the one person who was never supposed to!?”

His chest was heaving. His voice had become hoarse. He saw other-him mouthing the words slowly, _the one person who was never supposed to,_ and then he tensed and looked up. 

“Who'd you kill to get where you are?” His voice shook. His eyes were wide. Tony had the distinct feeling that he already knew the answer to what he asked. 

“I want to hear you say it!” other-him demanded again, taking a step forward, and something sparked across Tony's mind. Was that an Infinity Gem or Extremis telling him what his instincts already did: that the man in front of him was dangerous beyond what he'd ever faced. 

There was no need to pull up Extremis. They were words he'd memorized years ago. “In the aftermath of the Superhero Civil War, after the surrender of the leader of the Anti-Registration forces, Steve Rogers, known to the world as Captain America, was gunned down on the steps to the New York Federal Courthouse before his arraignment.”

There was silence for a long, long time. Other-him stared, unmoving, unblinking. Just...breathing.

“Is this a joke?” he finally asked, quiet.

It wasn't, but Tony wanted to bark in horrid laughter anyway. “Why would I lie about something like this?”

“Because you don't know how it sounds. Superhero civil war? Anti-Registration?” Other-him hung his head, and Tony could make out how his hands, balled into fists, were trembling. “You have to be joking. What about that merits that kind of ending? What could possibly mean enough that you had to stop him, that you – ”

“No!” His voice echoed through the room. Tony shook his head. “Never. You, out of everyone, should know that I would never ask for something like that.” All Tony wanted was for Steve to listen, for Steve to understand what it was Tony fought for and against.

“But he died anyway.”

Tony bit his lip. He didn't want to think about it, because even now when Steve was alive, thinking of that time made him feel chilled to the very bone. “...Yes,” he finally said, and it didn't matter what had really happened with time bullets or the Red Skull – to Tony, he had lived those months knowing his Steve was gone and not coming back.

“And you killed him.” Other-him's head shot up. He took a step toward Tony, expression frighteningly blank.

A rainy day, being drenched in a downpour, the eyes of a nation on him.

“It wasn't supposed to be like this,” Tony whispered.

“ _Stop making excuses!_ ” The shout rang loud, unanswered throughout the room, followed by harsh panting. Tony had never seen himself so ugly, face twisted in such a sneer, eyes wide and bulging, veins popping on his forehead, teeth bared, expression held together with the barest of restraint.

“You killed him!” There was a loud explosion, and Tony dived to the side on instinct, crashing to the floor.

Other-him stood, arm raised, shoulders heaving. The Infinity Gauntlet gleamed, all of the gems sparkling at once, and Tony realized just how very close he was to death. It was simply a matter of wishing him gone this.

“I would have done anything to save him, and you threw his life away!” Other-him slashed the air with his arm, hurling a wide swath of light at him.

Tony scrambled up, and he nearly tumbled over face-forward with the amount of thrust he directed to the repulsor boots. He burst forward, almost spiraling out of control. Whatever this model was, it was too sensitive, hadn't been finely-tuned to Extremis's specifications, and that said far more about his other self's priorities than anything else he could have done.

He made a nearly right angle turn, as another blast almost caught him.

“Do you think I wouldn't have done the same!?” he shouted over his shoulder as he flattened out, flying in a straight line. “Do you think I didn't replay that day a million times in my head, what I could have done differently to save him?”

“It doesn't matter.” Other-him appeared in front of him, making Tony get whiplash as he shot back, scrambling for balance. “That's all it takes. One place you didn't push as hard, one time you didn't argue as vehemently. You should have. You would have, if you knew. But it doesn't change the ending, or that it's your fault.”

His voice had gone cold. His eyes were shuttered. Tony didn't move, didn't attempt anything as he watched his other self hunch his shoulders, eyes affixed on the floor.

As it turned out, there was one thing between the two of them that wasn't so different, after all.

Other-him raised his arm toward Tony, and the Infinity Gauntlet on his arm shifted, changed shape. A repulsor appeared on his palm, bright and shining blue.

“Why won't you fight back?” he asked. In that quiet question was the immensity of the entire scenario, universes and incursions and all.

Tony would have. But there was only one conceivable way to accomplish that here. Take his own Infinity Gauntlet, and fight fire with fire.

But if it turned into that, there was no telling what would become of them, and of this room. Where would that have left this place, the last remnant of thousands upon thousands of universes? These were their final memories that were to be caught in the destruction.

Tony didn't know how to judge his own life and his own goals against that.

He raised his own arm in response, aimed it directly in line with his other self, and even though his stomach churned, his hand remained steady.

Tony shot off a repulsor beam, squeezing the gem in his other hand. He heard the answering shot from his other self, and the explosion turned everything white.

Something seared through his mind, and it took too long for Tony to realize it was meant to be seen. It was like when Extremis had malfunctioned, except the ones and zeros cleared into visions too familiar and alien to make sense of.

His back was to the alley wall, legs bent out before him, a bottle dangling between his fingers as he swatted uselessly at cockroaches, mice, and the ghosts that haunted him.

Rhodey shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance as he examined the upgrades for War Machine, but he couldn't hide the way his eyes shone at his hand ran over the armor.

Happy's chin rested on his hands as he smiled goofily at Pepper, who only raised an eyebrow at him, an answering smile twitching on her lips. There was a strange tightening in Tony's chest as he watched them, and he loved and hated it at the same time.

Steve's arms were wrapped around his front, chin resting on his shoulder and breath warm against his cheek, and this wasn't – a dream, Tony could never have imagined something so tangible as this, but more than not being his imagination, it also wasn't _real._

“Stop it!” Tony shouted.

Steve's body was on the Helicarrier slab, the splatters of blood on the shield as clear as the white star in the center. It wasn't worth it, Tony repeated, over and over again to someone who could no longer hear him.

Steve was in his arms, and Tony trembled as he watched the blood trickle down his mouth, the light in his eyes growing duller. No, he'd never experienced this for himself, but how was it that he could feel every single wracked sob coursing through his own body?

_I'll do it, I'll do it, I promise._

Lies mixed in with the truth, and they all felt the same. Maybe all of the fake memories were real and merely forgotten, like usual, except for the fact that Tony couldn't have reconciled Steve dying twice. He had barely survived having it happen once.

“I'm not you!” Tony grabbed his head, yanking his hair, anything to ground himself from the reality playing out before his eyes, the despair that seeped into every fiber of his being.

The entire room glowed, every Infinity Gem at full throttle. Tony screamed, Extremis opening up countless communication channels, one after another, past comprehension or possibility, turning the roar at the back of his mind inescapable, indistinguishable from every single universe's Tony.

“Tony!”

A thousand, a million hims opened their eyes, to countless Steve Rogers', James Rhodes', Pepper Potts', Thors', Avengers', hands on his shoulder to shake him.

“Tony, are you okay!?” Their voices overlaid each other, like an endless echo.

A thousand, a million hims opened their mouths to one single utterance. “No.”

How many of him knew about the incursions already? How many of him had already taken matters into their own hands? How many of him had to confess to his friends the blood on his hands?

His – no, not his – the voices of other-hims trembled, and time stretched and contracted at the same time, feeling like a second and an eternity as they recounted what they'd learned, what Extremis fed into their own minds. The destruction of the multiverse, only for its resurrection at the end.

At the end, the images in front of him solidified, and Steve took a deep breath. “Will it work?” Steve asked, eyes affixed on Tony's. “Would this plan save everyone?”

Something gripped his chest, tight and painful, as he blinked back at Steve. “It should, but I'm – he's a monster, there shouldn't be a question as to whether we can work with him!”

_Yes, yes, he's right,_ other-him's voice echoed through, their shared minds unable to obscure any thoughts from each other. 

“I'm not asking about whether we should work with him. I'm asking what _you_ think, because I'm working with you. And if you believe in this course of action, then that's enough for me.” The Steves turned to the other Avengers, and Tony was the last person Steve should trust, he'd gotten him killed, what was he thinking?

“No!” Other-him's cry cut through the shared consciousness. “You can't!”

The world in front of Tony swirled, a confused kaleidoscope, a cacophony of voices and arguments, the loudest one Tony could hear coming from himself.

“Don't you understand?” Other-him's cry ripped through, overpowering every other Tony, their protests taking one form. “I've told you what he's done! Someone like him” – _me –_ “doesn't deserve that!”

Steve looked at him, and it jarred Tony, that Steve could smile so sadly. “If it was up to you to decide on what they deserve, then I wouldn't be standing here next to you right now. And that's the last thing I would want.”

There was another lull in the timeline, the other universe's Infinity Gems blinking in and out, sparking through Tony's consciousness.

“ _Like this?” Steve said, the Infinity Gauntlet gleaming on his hand._

“ _Right,”_ _Tony's own voice came through hoarse. “You just – ”_

Like that, the connection was cut off, leaving Tony in the gaping silence of his own mind.

When he opened his eyes, it was like nothing had changed. Other-him was still there, arm still outstretched, just like before the explosion. They let their arms fall down, as their minds processed what had just occurred.

Other-him opened his mouth, and there was a stirring in the room, a great rumbling that caused both of them to whirl around. They turned, looking around them in a complete circle, as Infinity Gem after Infinity Gem materialized besides them, the room swirling in a torrent of colors as they were filled with more gems that Tony had thought even possible to exist.

“No.” The whisper came from other-him. “That's impossible.” The words hung in the air, unanswered, as they both gazed on the impossible. Infinity Gem after Infinity Gem winked back at them, like an endless expanse of space and stars.

_Enough of them, and I can birth every universe back, every single one that was destroyed, every single life that was lost. Everything lives._

“No.” Other-him shook his head vehemently. “No. It doesn't work like that,” he continued, like his words could make his beliefs truth. “There's no way they would have willingly given the fates of their entire universes over that easily.”

“But the evidence is right here,” Tony said, voice distant, disbelieving as he reached out, beckoning a Power Gem in the shape of a ring to him. He breathed out, slowly, as he looked up again, the numbers of Infinity Gems increasing with each passing second. He stood in awe of it, the wills of an infinite amount of people spurring them on.

He heard other-him let out a strangled cry, and turned to see him on his knees, hands clutching his head.

“Hey,” Tony said, softly, and he could only think of the moments when his own heart beat in time with this man's, could recall the overwhelming, overpowering chasm of despair he had to look face on as he reached for other-him's shoulder. “It wasn't – ”

“Of course it was!” Other-him snapped. “Look at this! Do you think – no, you _know_ this wasn't supposed to happen! This wasn't how it was supposed to work at all.” He shook. “So yes, it was. Of course it was all worthless. I didn't have to...what I did...what happened to you...it didn't have to come to this at all.” His hands balled into fists in front of him. “It was all my fault, and it was all for nothing.”

Tony grit his teeth, battling waves of conflicting emotion all over, honing in on the ball of frustration that left him trembling. “You heard them. Us. We all believed your idea should work, no matter how we felt about it. Don't tell me that after all of this, that part's not even worth finding out?”

Other-him sat back on his haunches. He closed his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, voice suddenly void of that tightly coiled emotion, and Tony was too familiar with this state of affairs. He nodded in answer.

No more fighting. No more crying. No more feeling. There was nothing left but what had to be done.

Other-him led Tony over to the console, staring at the keys before him, before typing something in. All the lights in the room shut off at once, but the space remained illuminated by the glow of the Infinity Gems. Looking at them, Tony had never felt so small.

But they weren't as important as what had to come next. Tony glanced over at other-him, whose face was set in a grim expression.

He no longer knew how to feel about the other man. Revulsion? Pity? Anger? But more than anything else, prying their memories wide open to each other had instilled an understanding between the two of them now. Tony doubted he could set off in another shouting rage at him with what he knew.

“This strategy was yours, and the gauntlet acts as an extension of will. You cannot make an idea real if you don't first believe in it,” Tony said.

“Don't tell me that like I haven't spent years living the mindset,” other-him replied brusquely, but Tony could see how his other self fidgeted as he looked the power of the multiverse in the eye, how he accessed Extremis back and forth, eyes going from blue to black by the second. “The process is a bit more complicated when you're using more than one. Not exactly a Centimanes, here.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “I trust myself to come up with better options than having to use them all as intended.”

“What do you know, same here.” Other-him's eyes were pitch-black now, and when he raised his hand, an Infinity Gauntlet in the shape of a bracelet formed around his wrist. He splayed his fingers outwards, the gems in the bracelet glowing.

Tony took a step back, watching as strings upon strings began to form between the gems in the room. Six gems linked to each other in a circle, and Tony faintly realized that they had modeled themselves after the circular shape of the bracelet. A thin white line joined every set of Infinity Gems, so that the room was awash with white wisps connecting the red, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow on a thread. 

The white shifted to gold, expanding, solidifying, the shape rounding out. The waves of energy washed over them, increasing a thousand-fold by the moment. The gems wanted to be together. This was their natural state, greater than the sum of its parts, and if Tony was overwhelmed by them separately, then he couldn't truly comprehend what it meant to bear witness to the power to build the entire multiverse. The bracelets in the room started to gleam as they took their forms, and –

There was an ear-splitting snap, and the massive, all-encompassing energy sizzled away like steam. Tony had to shut his eyes against the blast of pressure unleashed. The golden bracelets thinned, until they were just the mere white strings of light holding the gems together.

Other-him stumbled backwards. He gasped, knelt over, breaths heaving his entire frame.

“Hey!” Tony ran up to him, ears buzzing, Extremis registering the elevated heartbeat, pulse rate of his other self. He hadn't even considered, but...how much strain did this put on one person? Just for himself alone, the Infinity Gauntlet had almost been too much, but to try to harness countless numbers of them all at once...

“Are you okay?” Tony asked. Other-him didn't respond, his body still wracked for breath, the bracelet on his hand clanging against the floor as he leaned over, placing his palms flat against the floor.

“I shouldn't have asked you to do this on your own,” Tony finally admitted as he grasped other-him's shoulder, only for his hand to be slapped away.

“I have to!” Other-him spat, but it came out as a rasp. “I can't fail here. There are too many – have been too many – lives resting on this moment. You saw how many people entrusted their fates to this.” His hands curled into fists.

Tony grit his teeth, and he felt his shoulders shaking beneath the armor. He couldn't stop the noise of frustration from escaping. “Yeah, I saw, I was there too. But that doesn't mean you have to keep being such a goddamn martyr!” Is this always how it felt to deal with himself? His voice rose. “It's not just on you! Don't discredit everyone's choices by saying otherwise! You think those Avengers did what they did just for you?” He shook his head vehemently. “They're a team. They trusted their teammate to vouch for you. It's not as simple as them hoisting all of the responsibility onto you and you carrying that burden! Without their Infinity Gems, we wouldn't even be here.” He stood up. “Everyone is doing this together as a team. I'm not going to let you stand there and say that you're the only one who matters here!”

Tony let the pieces of the armor open away from his body as he stepped out, and held his arm out until an Infinity Gauntlet formed around it.

So much for no more anger. But there was a steely glint in other-him's eyes when Tony met them, and other-him nodded slowly as he rose to his feet in turn.

“Every set of gems has their own memory of their universe,” he began. “That's what I call out to, to restore everything. Most of them are similar enough to our own. But there are many that aren't, or changed in just one small way. I can't substitute in my own experiences, rewrite every universe as some version of the one I know. But if you allow too much give, let the gems take over too fully, it's easier to get...lost. That's what just happened before I stopped it. Losing your own sense of self among the histories of these universes – ” his face darkened – “that'd be even worse. We need our wills to shape them back together.”

Tony had to resist a shudder at the thought. The loss of individuality and control felt sharper than any defects in the rebirth of universes.

“Extremis helps,” his other-self added. “But there are dangers in overutilizing that, too.”

Right. Tony was intimately familiar with how easy it was to lose yourself in the program, after all. For all one could gain, there was so much else to be sacrificed in the process.

“Have to wonder how you envisioned this endgame would work out earlier,” Tony commented wryly. “You thought it would just all work out on your own?”

“What good would a Tony Stark be if he assumed all his plans would fail?” other-him replied curtly as he took a step forward. “It would have happened. I'd have made sure of that.”

Tony didn't want to see it, but Extremis helpfully supplied the image of Steve growing cold in his arms flashed in front of him. He exited out, eyes darting away from his other self. No matter the cost. There was suddenly no doubt in his mind of what his other self was so sure of.

Well, fail-safes really hadn't ever been on the top of his priority list. They raised their hands in unison.

Within an instant, Tony knew exactly what other-him had been telling him. The unending expanse, the endless depth – it would leave anyone stunned, and Tony dove into Extremis instead, out of desperation.

The code, the familiar and safe machinations provided distance away from the sentience of the gems and what lay within. From the sheer amount of life radiated out by the universes he bore witness to.

He floated, like he was submerged in some ocean. The human race was less than a speck of dust in the matter, Galactus and his heralds and the Watcher flashes that darted past him. The Beyonders moved before his eyes, colorful, entrancing and he felt himself be swept away by them.

Stories called out to him, a countless number of lives, tugging at him, and Tony wasn't the one their words were meant for. Is this what being God felt like?  _Don't lose yourself,_ he repeated, over and over like a mantra. There was so much left to do, he told himself, even as lives cried out to him endlessly. He...just couldn't care about them.  _You'll be okay. I just need to do this. I'm sorry._ Tony denied them out of necessity (out of fear), shut his eyes, his ears, his heart off to them. 

_It doesn't make a difference! Because that's where your path leads in the end, with nothing left to live for because you burned everything you ever had!_

Steve's words cut into him, and Tony shook his head, trying to clear his mind. But now that it was there, the sight of the barely restrained tears, the terrible agony there, couldn't be forgotten.

Was that what happened? When one flew too close to the sun? When one tried to push away human emotions, sadness and anger and regret, away, for the sake of becoming something without limits? Was that what one lost?

_What are we doing?_ The realization hit like a train. _We aren't meant to play God. There's nothing at the end of that path for us._ The answer was right there, and Tony reached out for it.

The truth wasn't about the scope of things, some big picture that he could only conceptualize or approximate. There was such a thing as a universe, but who could truly see one in its entirety? Not anyone or anything Tony could possibly comprehend. Every living being had their own universe that expanded far enough to fill their entire being, and that was more important than mounds of rock and masses of concentrated heat and gravity.

A baby staring at his hand, grasping his finger in its grip. Someone smiling at him, green or scaled or horned or human, as they took his hand. Friends, family, teammates, gathered at the table, laughing, joking, protesting the unfair usage of powers to nab the last piece of toast. The freezing rain pounding his body, the letters on the gravestone burned into his eyes. Three suns in the sky, a god descending from the heavens. His first kill, purple blood fresh on his hands, and how his chest rattled in his body when he breathed. First kisses, a countless number of them, that made warmth and nerves and queasiness and giddiness echo in his chest.

Truths mixed in with other truths, and they all felt the same. They were all right, to someone. He wasn't the one to deny them. This is what it meant to bring a universe back.

You don't have to prove your own existence to me, Tony thought, as something fell into place somewhere. I'm... not the person to judge which of you are worthy of saving. We want to save everyone.

All he could do...was understand.

“Tony!”

Tony jolted out of his reverie. He opened his eyes, faintly aware of his harsh breathing.

“What happened?” he finally managed.

“See for yourself,” other-him said, and Tony brought his gaze over.

He saw a single golden bracelet, complete and whole, studded with Infinity Gems. They watched as it morphed its shape, taking the form of a gaunt – no, it was too thin to be one. An Infinity Glove, its original shape. Then, as soon as the transformation was complete, it faded before their eyes, the rest of the Infinity Gems in the room shimmering at once as it did.

The silence went uninterrupted for a long time.

“It went back. To its own Earth,” other-him said abruptly. He paused, like the words had to be thought over twice. “It needs to be there, now that the place has been reborn and all.” His voice broke on the last word. Tony pointedly didn't glance over at him.

“So the key to saving the multiverse is...empathy?” Other-him finally spoke, and it was with a hint of hysterical disbelief, a tinge of tears. “Am I understanding that right?”

“What was it that got us to this point, again?” Tony glanced sidelong at his other self. “It was out of love, wasn't it? Guess it just goes to show: can't brush off the feel-good things.”

Other-him scoffed. “I could gag listening to you.” A long pause followed before he looked up, almost in challenge. “Love, is it? Is that something to be proud of?”

Tony took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I don't know.” Was there even a right answer to that? “Let's leave those questions until after the job's done.”

“Yeah,” other-him agreed shortly. “How are you feeling? You up for more?”

“I'm not tired.” It wasn't a lie, not really. He felt...finished, accomplished, but that couldn't be the case, not with so many other shining lights in the room. But if it was a case of whether he could do more... “If anything, I feel refreshed.”

“Let's do this, then,” other-him said. Tony only nodded in response, and they both raised their arms at the same time.

The beginning didn't get easier. There was always that hesitation, like he was looking down from the edge of a cliff, and only the unknown loomed in front of him.

But every time, tipping over didn't mean falling. It meant soaring.

If the cruelty and pain he saw was enough to catch him and overwhelm him, then the hope and love could lift him up and free him. It was a game of balances that couldn't be quantified by equations, life and death and everything between.

Tony became his own best and worst person countless times, and that might have been the hardest part, wondering if he was being shaped by experiences not his. There was no safe distance from fiction here, the brightness and rawness enough to blind. That painfully selfish thought grounded him, might have made him hate this more than love it, but Tony had always been very, very good at doing things to be hated, and hated for.

Would he emerge a better person? He couldn't answer that.

There was a lull in the middle of eternity, and Tony squeezed his eyes, searching, wanting for nothing and everything.

He gasped and shuddered as his eyes flew open, realizing what had just happened.

To his side, other-him blinked slowly. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were black. “There's...” he had to clear his throat from the rasp, “there's one universe left.”

“Is there?” Tony glanced around the room. There were still thousands upon thousands of Infinity Gems still in the room, far more than had been in the room to begin with.

“The only gems that disappeared were the ones that belonged to reborn universes. I guess all of these little guys come from universes that are still...intact.” Other-him diverted his gaze.

There were the universes that had helped them, but also the universes that he had ruined. So he couldn't say _okay_ or _fine_ , not if their Earths had ended up anything like Tony's after losing their Infinity Gauntlet.

Other-him glanced down at his bracelet. “We couldn't have done any of this if we weren't here, on some Earth without a home. But now all that's left is to give that back.” His voice wavered a bit, and Tony nodded.

“Then I think you'd be the best person to finish this off.”

Other-him didn't deign that with a response, instead opening and closing his fist, his face obscured. He squeezed his eyes shut, and the Infinity Gems in the room shone with an blinding intensity they hadn't reached earlier. The ground rumbled, and Tony _felt_ the expanse radiating from other-him, the sparks and crackles and something indescribable that made tears sting at the corner of his eyes. The tools to build a universe, and Tony knew that what he heard was only the Infinity Gems' way of communicating the concept of _rebirth_ that made sense to him, but that didn't stop the sound of clattering and clanking and high-pitched squealing and the thrumming before the sound of a satisfying click resonated through him, from being ingrained in his mind.

The Infinity Gems in the room turned black. Inert. The low rumbling ceased, like it had never happened in the first place. Other-him opened his eyes, to the one set of Infinity Gems still glowing in the room around his wrist. He blinked rapidly, the tears clinging to his eyelashes. His breath rattled when he exhaled.

“Welcome back, universe-93606.” 

Tony took a step back, diverting his eyes, not even wanting to spare a breath as other-him walked back over to his console. Normally, Tony would be more than eager to evaluate another Tony Stark's systems, but the last thing he thought he could do at the moment was act normal. The clicking sound of keys took the edge off his nerves, but nothing short of a sedative could have gotten the buzzing out of his system.

“ _Tony? Tony, can you hear me? Do you come in!?”_

Tony blinked, eyes widening before he raised two fingers to the side of his head in disbelief. The gesture was entirely unnecessary, since Extremis was hardwired into him, but he pressed against his ear anyway.

“ _Arno?”_

“ _Holy shit – Tony? Is it really you!? Oh god, where the fuck are you!?”_

“ _I'm – ”_ Was there even a way to answer the first one? “ _Earth-93606.”_

A stunned silence followed his words.  _“You want to explain how you ended up escaping from the Illuminati and what you're doing in another universe altogether?”_

Tony froze. _“You know about the Illuminati?”_

“ _You really shouldn't underestimate me. I'm smarter than you, you know._ ” Arno's voice dropped suddenly, low and a whisper. _“Tony, I don't know if you realized before you left but at that incursion...they pulled the trigger.”_

Ice rushed through Tony. Those were his weapons, he had helped create them, and what else could he expect, other than for them to be used for their intended purpose? He felt ready to heave, no matter what his mind knew and what he tried to lie to himself about.

_It's okay, that world is fine again, it's fine, it's –_

“ _What do you mean it's okay!?”_

Tony jumped as he realized he'd spoken aloud. _“It's a long story. Look, I don't know how soon I can come back right now. We just sort of saved the multiverse.”_

“ _What? Saved the multiverse? Who's we?”_

“ _Who are you talking to?”_ A familiar voice surged through the line, and Tony was aware his jaw had dropped. _“Is that – do we know where he is!? Tony! Tony, can you hear me?”_

“ _Steve?”_ Tony croaked out. _“What are you doing with Arno?”_ Something crawled into the pit of his stomach, two separate parts of his lives crashing together again.

“ _Yes, we do, Earth-93606, but I've only got the means to get there – we'd need Tony's help on his end if we want to get him back home. That doesn't exactly seem to be his highest priority at the moment though,”_ Arno added wryly.

“ _What if we want to get to him?”_ Steve demanded, and Tony didn't know how to feel about what he knew was coming next.

“ _Is that really necessary? Wait, what are you – ”_

“ _I'm going.”_

“ _Rogers, you can't!”_

“ _Tony, do you hear that?”_ Steve said. _“Just stay put! I'll get to you!”_ There was a shuffling noise, and then Arno's voice cut across.

“ _Are you joking with me!? You can't just do that! I won't let you!”_

“ _I don't think anyone can stop Steve Rogers from doing what he wants,”_ Tony interjected. It was the first thing that came to mind. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears. _“Believe me, I've tried.”_

There was a hiss of exasperation. _“Do you really think I'll let the two of you alone together on some universe we know nothing about? After all that's happened?”_

“ _It'll be fine,”_ Tony said, and spoke the truth for once. _“I want him here.”_

“ _Are you nuts!?”_ Arno's voice was low again, like he was trying to prevent anyone from overhearing. “ _He went off on you the last time you met! I still barely trust having him here with me! Just because you're some goddamned masochist who's fucking head over heels with the man – ”_

“ _Arno,”_ Tony sighed and chewed on his lip. _“I'm completely aware of everything we've done to each other. But...this is something the two of us need right now. It has to be now. We'll be fine. Trust me. I'll definitely be coming back home.”_ He'd never really understood the meaning of that word so well until now. 

“ _Besides coming back, you still haven't explained how you even left in the first place.”_

“ _Later. I have to go now. Make sure Steve gets here safely. Don't sabotage it and have him end up in some zombie-infested place.”_

Tony turned around to where other-him peered at him curiously. Tony couldn't even imagine what his own face looked like at the moment.

“Something happen?” other-him asked.

“When this Earth slotted itself back into place, so did its means of communication with the multiverse. Just some concerned family and friends checking up on me,” Tony said with a small chuckle.

“Oh,” other-him said delicately, eyes darting away in the ensuing awkward silence.

That was shattered with a crash. The two of them whirred around to a flash of red, white, and blue.

“Tony!” Steve, _his_ Steve, rushed over to him. Tony's muscles froze up, preparing for the crash, but Steve came to a standstill just before him. Tony steeled himself, waiting to get shaken, or shouted at, or _something._

Then his face was cupped between two hands, and Steve lifted his face up so that their eyes met.

“It's really you, right?” Steve blurted. “Tony...are you okay?” His voice shook, his fingers tracing lines of sensation over Tony's face, his eyes searching desperately, and Tony didn't know what he was looking for. 

“Y-yeah,” Tony could barely utter. “I'm fine.” 

Steve's face crumpled. “Oh thank god.” Steve ducked his head. His fingers were trembling. After a long moment, he raised his face again, and this was more his Steve, those furrowed eyebrows, that look of righteous indignation. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I – ” Tony didn't even know how to begin his answer. 

“I hate to break up the touching reunion, but I think we should remember that you're not exactly in the privacy of your own home here. Or your own universe, even.” 

They turned, backing up. Other-him had his hands in his pockets as he stared at them, a smirk plastered on his face. No – stared at  _Steve,_ and no matter how much he wanted to fool with his smile, there was no mistaking that haunted expression. 

Steve stepped in front of Tony, shield raised, other arm stretched out.

“Who the hell are you?” 

“Finding out where you're ending up and who'll you be meeting is the sort of thing you should do before you start crossing universes. I really shouldn't be telling a seasoned strategist about this.”

“And you're not answering my question,” Steve said, and Tony hasn't seen him like this, straight past wary suspicion and right into aggression. “What reason would a Tony Stark need another Tony for? Why did you take him!?” 

Tony felt like he'd be doused in ice water.  _Nothing good,_ Steve's tone said, and no matter how worried he'd just acted over Tony, the suspicion wasn't gone.

“You're mistaken here, Cap. Your Tony came here of his own will. I hadn't been expecting him.” Other-him shrugged. “But if you want an answer to your original question, then,” other-him spread out his arms, the sneer widening on his face. “I'm Tony Stark. As you well know. What you might not know is my other title, even more well known than Iron Man. Rabum Alal, the Great Destroyer, at your service.” 

“What the _hell!?”_ Steve backed up, and Tony followed on instinct.

“Wait, Steve, he's not – ”

“Tony, get _back!”_ Steve snapped, and he stepped back smoothly, bringing his arm back before setting his shield loose. 

“Steve! Stop! He's fine! We're not fighting him!” 

Other-him frowned and raised his arm, and one of the Infinity Gems in his bracelet began to glow. But before anything else happened, a blur shot out from out of nowhere. A loud clanging sound rang through the room, the vibrations of the collision making the hairs on the back of Tony's neck stand on end.

The shield clattered to the floor, along with what had stopped it.

Steve stepped back rapidly, taking Tony with him as Tony and his other self gaped at what lay on the floor.

Next to Steve's shield lay...the exact same shield. _But that's impossible, they're one-of-a-kind,_ Tony thought blankly. 

“Tony's right.” The familiar voice came from their side. “You're not being the best guest right now.”

Someone stepped from the shadows. Steve lowered into a defensive stance as Tony's jaw dropped.

“You're – ”

The person he'd left behind in the future in his own world, the one who had disappeared in front of him.

“You're alive!” Tony shouted, and other-Steve inclined his head toward him in recognition, not even sparing Steve a glance, before turning back to other-him.

“Steve,” other-him stumbled forward. “How?”

_How_ was right – Tony recalled the memories he'd seen, and how had he not put it together back then, that the person who had saved him in Necropolis was the same person that his other self couldn't save? 

Then again, believing that dead people could come back to life was the order of the day, wasn't it?

“Tony,” Steve said under his breath, turning to look at him out of the corner of his eye. “Is what the other you said about his identity true?”

Tony nodded, but reached out to grab Steve's arm.

“He's not a threat,” he said.

Steve glared at him. “How can he not be? He's the reason that this entire thing started!”

“He's also the reason this entire thing stopped,” Tony countered. “Just...I know this is the last thing I should ever ask of you, but trust me.” His eyes shifted over to their analogues. They were facing each other now, other-him's eyes still wide. Disbelieving.

“Please,” he added. “They're the last people who want to get in a fight with you right now.”

Steve turned to follow his gaze, and maybe Steve had no grasp of these two's history like Tony did, but his instincts made up for a lot, because the tension left his shoulders and he straightened, lines of unease creasing his face. He didn't step back, though.

“You were the last one I saved,” other-him whispered in disbelief, and other-Steve stepped toward him.

“No,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “I was the first one you did.”

Tony recalled then, what he saw when Extremis and the Infinity Gems bound their thoughts together, what exactly these two were to each other, what exactly the other-him must be thinking as he saw the Steve who had bled out in his arms in front of him, and...maybe him and Steve shouldn't be the ones here to witness this.

“The Infinity Gems act upon the will of their user, right? If the wish is strong enough, they'll do whatever is in their power. Even...even if it's unconscious.”

Other-him reeled back like he'd been struck. At the same time, Tony reached out and tugged at his own Steve.

“We should let them be.”

Steve let himself be pulled away, before stopping abruptly just before Tony pulled him out of the line of sight behind a row of consoles.

“I won't leave this room, or let them out of my sight,” Steve said in a low voice, but Tony could hear the hesitation. “Your – our safety matters more than whatever privacy you think these two deserve.”

Tony expected the first bit, but not the next. He turned his back, leaning himself against the machines. He only allowed himself to study Steve, who had no eyes for him in return. Steve shuffled, looking more discomfited by the second.

“I thought I was back in the ice, at first,” other-Steve admitted, and what did you know, the enhanced hearing made it impossible to not overhear. Tony watched as his own Steve tensed, and he aborted taking a step forward, to lay a hand on his shoulder. “But how could I go through memories that didn't belong to me? Of people I...I had left behind. I couldn't believe them, at first. I assumed it was a nightmare.” He paused, as if unsure how to proceed.

“You saw,” other-him said flatly. “You saw...what I did, didn't you?”

There was no response for a long time. Other-him huffed, laughed weakly, and Tony could imagine the look coloring his face, and his own stomach twisted in the thought.

“Then you shouldn't have stopped that shield.”

“Tony.” Other-Steve's voice was pained. Steve's eyes furrowed, and Tony saw his fists clench. “You...I was sure I had to stop you. Or at least, the Tony I saw, what those Infinity Gems showed me.” His voice wavered. “But it wasn't because of what you think. No, that's not true. I can't say there wasn't disgust, or outrage, or bewilderment, but in the end, I won't lie and say that's what it boiled down to. That's not why. One person's sacrifice isn't enough to save everyone.” He laughed like he wanted to cry, and that told Tony this wasn't just an abrupt change in topic. “It's the wrong thing to say to a hero, isn't it? But it's the wrong thing to expect of them. That kind of thinking is too unfair. That's what we forget, a lot of the time, even though I tell myself otherwise. That our choices and lives are shared.

“It's what you and I forgot. You thought that you had to forge through on your own, that the burden was yours to bear, all the sins of the world, but this wasn't something you were supposed to go through alone.”

Steve opened his mouth and closed it, a mixture of confusion and annoyance and judgment clouding his expression.

“It's too late for regrets,” other-him lied baldly. “It worked, didn't it? I saved everyone!” A short bark of laughter followed. “I saved everyone. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't pretty. I saved everyone, but not before massacring them in the process. Not before stripping away all their hope and turning them all against each other. The...the ending was all ours. The light at the end of the tunnel, that was something everyone shared. But the rest of it was on me, and don't even try claiming responsibility for this.”

“I made you promise. The weight of that responsibility killed me, and I gave it to you.” Other-Steve's voice finally broke into a sob. “I didn't want that. I didn't want you to suffer. All I wanted was for that to stop, because I'd caused it. So how can you say I'm not at fault?”

Steve closed his eyes and lowered his head. He was trembling. But he made no move to step away, and Tony didn't know whether to touch him when he reopened his eyes.

“You're not,” other-him whispered. “And because...because you know that there's no going back for me anymore.”

“You're right. There isn't. There isn't for me, either. But that's not what I'm asking of you.” The sound of a footstep rang through the room. “That doesn't mean we're stuck here. We can leave this place together.

“Whatever you committed wasn't your fault alone. I won't let you believe that. And...I'll help carry your cross. One person's sacrifice isn't enough to save someone else, but I'm not trying to save you. I'm not doing this for repentance.” A pause, a shaky, shuttered breath laden with tears, and hesitation, and acceptance. “I'm not seeking out happiness. I don't know where I go from here, other than knowing that no matter how you are, I want to be next to you.”

Tony heard it, and he saw it, from the reaction on Steve's face, when other-Steve reached around and caught other-him in his arms. He must have held him to his chest. For a long moment, no one reacted. Then a choked-off sob escaped other-him, and then the sound of crying, muffled against other-Steve's chest.

Steve stirred. He reached over to grab Tony's hand.

“Come on,” he said hoarsely, and Tony followed as he led them outside the room. The door slid to a shut behind them.

That left the two of them. There was nothing else, not the memories of thousands of universes to fill up the room with their presence, not even the familiar hum of machinery for Tony to access. It was quiet in a way Tony hadn't felt in a long, long time. He wasn't sure if he should treasure it, or if it reminded him of a loneliness he'd bore witness to so many times over.

Steve cleared his throat. He opened his mouth and closed it, looking away.

“I need an explanation,” he finally said. “From the very beginning. Of everything.”

Tony exhaled. “It's a long story.”

Steve's eyes darted over to the door. “I think we'll have enough time.”

Tony closed his eyes, a calm settling over him. He could do this. Just the facts, but nothing besides. So he explained. Everything. Starting from the Watcher, to the memories that plagued him, to Extremis, skipping over the scenes that Steve already knew, and he watched as Steve's expression darkened at the transition. To Necropolis, and how this world's Steve had come to save him with the Time Gem they had lost. He spoke of it to a long, deep frown by Steve, but no interruption came. Then the future, with Franklin Richards, and Extremis, and how Tony had been clued into the existence of Rabum Alal and how close they were to him.

Steve grunted at that part and finally spoke up.

“He brought you here?” he said sharply. “Knowing how dangerous it was?”

“I don't think he had much of a choice,” Tony said, surprised at the vitriol in Steve's voice.

Steve set his face in a steely expression, but Tony could sense it, the annoyance, near-anger emanating from his Steve, and Tony wondered why even mentioning the other-Steve bothered him so.

And next came the part that would be the hardest to talk about. The color drained from Steve's face as Tony explained his other self's plan, and Tony sensed how on edge the both of them were as he continued speaking, unable to stop now and consider exactly what he was saying. What followed was stranger, but easier to talk about. How Extremis and the Infinity Gems connected him to the other Tony Starks in the universe, and here Steve gave him an odd look, but Tony ignored it to soldier on.

How the other universes had entrusted them with their Infinity Gems. And how with that...

“Everything lives,” Tony finished. His throat felt parched after speaking for so long.

Steve was silent, eyes affixed on the floor. “You didn't ask them for help, did you? The other universes?”

“No.”

“Your only spokesperson was your other self. In all of their universes.” Steve stared at some spot past Tony, boring a hole into the wall with his gaze. “Those other Avengers must have trusted their Tonys beyond all belief, to hand over their Infinity Gems to him.”

Steve didn't sound shocked. In fact, he said it as a matter of fact, like it was the way things were.

Had that been their universe, once? Once upon a time, the trust would have been real, deserved even. But it had rotted away into black sludge, become unwarranted and the result of lies and deceit. Even when it had come to that, when no one had known what secrets Tony Stark hid, would his team have done that for him? Would it have been the right thing to do? Tony swallowed.

He had left out the part where it had been the Steves who had vouched for him.

“I'm just surprised that he forgave him,” Tony blurted out, and the elephant they had been so obliquely attempting to avoid reared its head.

“I'm not,” Steve replied flatly.

Tony's eyes widened, but Steve didn't shy away this time, looking straight back at Tony with complete assurance.

“Arno contacted us first, when he lost your signal through Extremis. That must have been when your Extremis was disabled. But then we reached Necropolis, and you were gone.”

Tony gaped in incomprehension. “You went after me!? What the hell were you thinking? There was no way you could have come undetected!”

“We thought that the element of surprise using Manifold would work well enough,” Steve said, a defensive edge to his voice. “You had stopped responding to the _implant_ in your _brain._ The only reason you should have done that...” He hesitated. “We assumed that it was of enough import to go there ourselves.” 

Tony tried to control his heart racing. It couldn't have been what it sounded like. It wasn't for his sake. It couldn't be.

Right; how had Steve explained to the Avengers that he had let their prisoner contemplating genocide go free and then lost all trace of him? Steve must have needed to see for himself, or else he'd be locked up in the Tower himself. Tony should have thought of that, of some way to absolve Steve from responsibility over him. If the Avengers didn't trust Steve, then Avengers World had been for naught.

“Of course, the Illuminati never showed up after we arrived there. So we searched for them. And when I finally confronted Reed, that's when I found out you had been their prisoner, not their accomplice. They,” Steve swallowed, “they hadn't seen you since that day in Necropolis.” 

Hands gripped his shoulders, and Tony shot his gaze up to Steve to be taken aback. There was an intensity in Steve's eyes, like something brimmed right below the surface.

“I was so angry.” Steve's grip tightened. “If we had found a corpse, then I don't think it would have been like that. But there was nothing. You were _gone._ You were supposed to be there, you were supposed to be okay, you _promised,_ and I thought you broke it.” His hands were trembling, Tony could feel the vibrations throughout his entire frame. 

“Steve,” Tony said, realization dawning, “it's only been a few hours for me. How...how long was I gone for you?” 

Steve licked his lips. It was a nervous tic Tony had never seen from him before. “Eight months.” He took a shuddering breath, blinked hard. “We were on the verge of the final incursion, and then...the sky turned blue. The other Earth disappeared. For some inexplicable reason, everything was over. But it wasn't, because then Arno told me that he'd picked up a signal that wasn't supposed to exist anymore.”

Steve's gaze was piercing, like everything that was Tony could be laid bare in front of him.

“You came back to me,” Steve said, like he still couldn't be sure of it.

Tony's mouth was dry, his lips numb as he spoke what had been the truth for as long as he could remember. “When it comes to you, I seem to be unable not to.”

Steve let go of him, and Tony stood shock-still as he processed what he had just said. Just because Steve had kissed him once didn't mean he could say things like that. It had been so soon for Tony, enough that if he concentrated he could still feel the ghost of Steve's lips against his. But it had been eight months for Steve. So he wasn't allowed words like those, like he could make empty promises. Like he mattered.

Steve looked like he was in pain, and since when did Steve Rogers let it show when things hurt?

“Sorry,” Tony said, “don't hold me to that, I was being – ”

“I want to,” Steve interrupted. “I want to hold you to that.” He paused. “I want to trust you, and work together with you, and be with you, whatever way you want to take that. I want...a lot of things.”

“But you can't.” Not anymore.

Steve's eyes flashed. “That's not for you to decide.”

Tony couldn't feel anything else from the words but the surge of irritation. “Then what use do you have telling me this? You say you want things like that, that's the same as you saying that you can't have them anymore!”

Steve raised his chin, defiant. “Since when have I ever really cared about what I wanted? Hell, since when do I even know what I want?”

“You just _said_ what you wanted!” 

“I know that!” Steve shook his head in exasperation. “I know what I'm _supposed_ to do. That's not the question.” He couldn't meet Tony's eyes. “I've asked you before, about what place in the world Steve Rogers has. We all know where Captain America stands, but...what do I want for myself?” His voice suddenly sounded distant. “The reason I'm even telling you all this is because wanting something isn't something I ever have to worry about.” 

Tony took a deep breath, not wanting to face Steve in that moment. “Steve, you're emotionally compromised.”

“Yes,” came the admittance, like a whispered confession. 

“Your feelings are interfering with your duty.” 

“Are they?” Steve mumbled. 

“Well, maybe all of them except a healthy dash of rage and disgust.” Tony chuckled hollowly. “You...still have those toward me, right?” 

“Of course I do,” Steve said sharply. He straightened. “But that's not the point. Besides that, I'm thinking what I _should_ do is maybe the same as what I _want_ to do.” 

“Well, then don't listen!” Tony spat, his heart hammering with the realization of what exactly Steve was leading up to. “You know exactly what should happen to me, and your other emotions are wrong.” 

Steve snorted. “I don't need anyone to tell me what to do. I've lived most of my life around how to tell right from wrong. I'm good on my own, thanks.”

Frustration crept into Tony's voice. “Then I don't see why this is so difficult!”  _You know what I've done, don't fool yourself into thinking I deserve forgiveness, don't make the same mistake that keeps undoing you, over and over again..._

“Because we make it difficult!” Steve exclaimed. “I'm not going to listen to you stand here and talk about how evil you are, when I know you're not.” His voice quieted. “Maybe it's true, what that man said...it's not fair for one person to take all the blame. You might be okay with doing that, but I won't let it happen. You deserve more than that. You deserve so much more than that, after you've given me so much. My place in the world. My home. My future.”

Tony couldn't respond to that, not to that look on Steve's face. How could he? Steve must have known, because he fidgeted, spoke up again.

“Come home.” His eyes brimmed with desperation. “Please.”

All Tony could do was nod in stunned disbelief, and he watched as Steve visibly calmed. It made sense, that their sheer stubbornness would be what held them together here. From now on.

Steve reached out and tugged Tony in. Tony expected a kiss, but Steve just pulled him in close, breathing against the juncture between neck and shoulder. His hand moved to wrap around the back of Tony's neck, gripping the hair there. Tony stared wide-eyed at Steve's shoulder, feeling Steve tremble and draw in shaky breaths.

“Thank you.” Steve buried his face into Tony's shoulder, and his next words were so muffled that Tony couldn't hear them. But Extremis translated the lip movements against his skin.

_Thank you for coming back to me._

Tony reached down to intertwine his fingers with Steve's hand, closed his eyes, and leaned back.

* * *

Tony rested his chin on his hands and shut his eyes, but he didn't stop working. He couldn't, what with Extremis always running, even behind closed eyes. The clack of keys being tapped from the other end of the console grounded him where Extremis's readings couldn't. Neither him not his other self needed to actually use keyboards, but the sound was calming.

They didn't need to speak aloud to do this. Despite both of them being who they were, that didn't mean everything was easy when they collaborated. It was the exact opposite, really. But here, they worked seamlessly. Like they could finish each other's thoughts without realizing.

They didn't need to say when things were finished, either. Other-him stood up, sparing a glance at the shining blue portal in the middle of the room and stretched.

“We should let the others know,” he said when Tony looked at him, and Tony followed him out.

As they walked side-by-side down the hallway, Tony finally became distinctly aware of the silence hanging over them. There wasn't something they had to distract themselves with here, when there was everything and nothing to talk about.

What were you supposed to say to someone who had seen...everything there was to know about you?

“Hey, so you're – okay?” Tony finally ventured after a long moment.

“We're doing this?” Other-him sighed and shrugged with a half-hearted smile. “I can't really give an answer to that. But,” he paused and chewed on his lip, “there's hope now. Real hope, for something after the ending of all of this. It's more than I expected, and it's more than I deserve.” He shrugged. “But he wants that for me, so I won't do anything otherwise.”

Tony nodded. They had gotten off easy. No matter how many times Steve told him otherwise, it was still impossible to believe.

“I'm better too,” Tony admitted. “Not just in the way you meant, but...for having come here.” There was nothing but truth there. He'd been the worst of himself at the beginning of all of this, so it wasn't much of an accomplishment, but it was a step.

Other-him smiled, and Tony knew that he'd understood exactly what the words had meant when they reached the end of the hallway.

“I know you'll never forgive me, and I don't blame you for that. But I did what I had to when I took him with me, and I won't apologize for that part,” other-Steve was saying as the door slid open. Other-him cleared his throat as he walked in, and both the Steves spun around to them.

Other-Steve only had eyes for the other-Tony. Steve's gaze was fixed on Tony, and it took effort not to fidget, now that Tony knew exactly what the look entailed. But it was something he could get used to.

“You gentlemen finished up?” other-him asked carefully. “Because we came to tell you that the portal's ready to go, and everyone can go home now.”

“We're done,” Steve said, coming to stand by Tony and conspicuously avoiding looking at other-Steve. He turned heel and rushed out, leaving everyone behind.

“Steve!” Tony had to jog a little to keep up with Steve's strides. When they burst into the lab, Steve made a beeline for the portal, and Tony grabbed his shoulder.

“Wait, wait, calm down, let's not rush out,” he said, and Steve was frowning when he turned around to face him. When he saw Tony's expression, he did relax marginally, the keen, intense alertness giving way to lines of stress and bags under his eyes Tony had never seen on him before.

“Sorry,” he said quietly. “I wasn't thinking.”

“Have a safe journey back,” other-Steve said as he and other-him walked in behind them. When he met Tony's gaze, he nodded, and Tony felt Steve tense beneath his hand. Tony looked back, and Steve looked utterly miserable. There was probably nothing Steve wanted more in this moment than to get the hell out of here. Tony...couldn't say he was looking forward to going back, not with how the world had been left, but the look on Steve's face was enough for him. Tony stepped next to Steve, facing their counterparts.

“We have a portal to each other's universes now. Maybe, if you need it, we could help in returning all the Infinity Gems back to their home universes.” Tony's mouth felt dry as he made the offer.

Other-him shook his head, and Tony felt a weight lift from his shoulders. “Appreciated, but this is my responsibility. Besides, it's not such a bad first project for our newly reinstated universe.” He and other-Steve exchanged a small smile. “It'll be fine. And to be blunt, if we see each other again, I want it to be a really, really, _really_ long time from now. Preferably when we're both done and dead.” Other-Tony grinned wolfishly at him. “So I can't say I'll see you soon, but I can wish you good luck.”

Other-Steve smiled apologetically, but his eyes said the same thing. “Sorry for everything,” he said, eyes flickering to Steve, “and thank you.”

“Right. Well,” Tony raised a hand in farewell, “good luck to you too.”

“We'll be going, then,” Steve nodded besides him.

When they turned around, Steve reached down and took Tony's hand in his.

“So, where do we go from here?” Tony asked him in a low whisper.

“A lot of places,” came the reply. “But first – ” Steve squeezed Tony's hand as he smiled at him, a real, genuine smile and this is what Tony always wanted to protect, this gentle and soft and heartbreaking smile – “we built a world together. Let's go back to it.”

With their hands joined, they stepped through.


End file.
